ZION  BUILDERS' 
SERMONS 


A  Series  of  Sermons  Addressed 

to  the  Young  People  of 

the  Church 

Preached  at  Lamoni,  Iowa,  and 
Independence,  Missouri 

BY  PRESIDENT  ELBERT  A.  SMITH 


Ufa 


INDEPENDENCE,  MISSOURI 
1921 


Z1ON   BUILDERS' 
SERMONS 


A  Series  of  Sermons  Addressed 

to  the  Young  People  of 

i 

the  Church 

Preached  at  Lamoni,  Iowa,  and 
Independence,  Missouri 

BY  PRESIDENT  ELBERT  A.  SMITH 


INDEPENDENCE,  MISSOURI 
1921 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


Faith 


Sermon  by  President  Elbert  A.  Smith,  during 
Zion  Builder  Services  at  Lamoni,  Iowa, 
March  13,  1921.  Reported  by  Winsome 
Smith  McDonald.  .... 

You  might  naturally  imagine  that  after  a  man  has  preached 
for  a  number  of  years  under  various  conditions  that  he  would 
approach  a  sermon  or  a  series  of  sermons  with  absolute  un- 
concern, but  I  believe  that  whenever  a  man  reaches  that  con- 
dition he  ceases  to  preach.  He  may  keep  on  talking  but  he  is 
not  preaching  any  longer.  Certainly  I  have  never  felt  a  more 
profound  feeling  of  responsibility  than  I  feel  in  entering 
upon  this  series  of  meetings,  and  I  depend  very  greatly  upon 
your  faith  and  prayers. 

The  subject  as  announced  for  to-night  is  that  of  faith,  and 
the  text  is  found  in  Mark  11 :  23,  "Have  faith  in  God,"  the 
language  of  our  Lord  and  Master. 

Some  two  or  three  weeks  ago  a  group  of  Chinese  students 
studying  in  the  University  of  Illinois  sent  out  a  questionnaire 
to  one  thousand  prominent  men  of  the  United  States,  men 
supposed  to  be  Christians.  There  were  only  three  questions 
in  this  questionnaire:  "Do  you  believe  in  God?  If  so,  why? 
What  kind  of  a  God  do  you  believe  in?" 

It  would  seem  to  be  a  litle  bit  ironical  that  it  should  be 
necessary  for  "heathen  Chinese"  to  ask  Christians  if  they 
believed  in  God;  but  evidently  these  students  considered 
it  necessary,  and  certainly  they  went  to  the  root  of  the 
matter,  because  the  first  question  in  the  "greater  catechism" 
is,  Do  you  believe  in  God?  I  do  not  refer  to  any  catechism 
of  any  denomination,  but  the  greater  catechism  that  con- 
fronts humanity  and  soon* or  late  presents  its  question  mark 
to  every  human. 

What  Is  Your  Mental  Attitude? 

I  want  to  ask  you  first  of  all,  What  is  your  mental  at- 
titude toward  this  question?  Alma,  one  of  the  Book  .of 
Mormon  preachers,  has  a  wonderful  sermon  on  faith  in  the 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


sixteenth  chapter  of  Alma,  and  in  it  he  exhorts  his  hearers 
to  have  faith;  but  he  adds  that  if  they  can  do  nothing  more 
than  merely  desire  to  believe  they  should  let  that  desire  work 
in  them  and  cultivate  it  and  presently  it  will  give  place  to 
faith. 

Do  you  desire  to  believe?  That  may  seem  to  be  begging  the 
question  before  the  evidence  is  presented;  but  I  have  on  my 
desk  in  the  office  a  book  by  a  very  modern  philosopher  named 
William  James,  and  the  title  of  that  book  is  The  Will  to 
Believe.  It  is  not  so  easy  to  get  the  meaning  of  William 
James  as  it  is  of  Alma;  getting  his  meaning  is  something 
like  trying  to  extract  an  ounce  of  gold  from  a  ton  of  quartz. 
With  William  James  it  is  somewhat  difficult  to  extract  the 
gold,  while  the  gold  of  Alma  lies  on  the  surface;  anyone 
can  carry  it  away,  and  the  vein  will  never  be  any  the  poorer. 
But  when  you  have  extracted  the  meaning  from  James's 
book  it  is  identical  with  the  advice  given  by  Alma.  He  holds 
that  it  is  not  illogical,  or  begging  the  question,  to  have  a  will 
and  desire  to  believe. 

Why  not?  Faith  offers  you  everything  that  man  needs; 
doubt  offers  you  nothing  and  would  take  away  even  that 
which  you  seem  to  have.  It  is  the  creeping  paralysis  of  all 
hope  and  all  human  initiative.  What  have  you  young  people 
to  do  with  atheism!  Nothing! 

Faith  Dynamic  in  All  Human  Institutions  and  Activities 

Faith  is  dynamic  in  all  human  activity,  and  in  all  human 
institutions  and  governments.  It  may  seem  to  be  something 
intangible,  but  it  underlies  all  human  institutions  and  trans- 
actions. 

The  family  and  the  home,  for  instance,  are  considered  by 
all  writers  on  economics  and  sociology  as  the  unit  of  civili- 
zation. Faith  underlies  the  family  and  the  home. 

Some  bright  day  some  one  of  these  girls  appears  on  the 
street  or  in  the  parlor  with  a  diamond  ring  on  her  finger 
which  she  is  trying  to  conceal  from  her  companions — yes, 
she  is  not.  Where  did  she  get  that  diamond  ring?  Did  she 
pick  it  up  in  the  street?  No,  your  guess  is  wrong.  Did 
her  mother  give  it  to  her  to  pay  her  for  washing  the  dishes 
or  darning  socks?  You  are  getting  farther  away  all  the 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


time.  Some  young  man  for  whom  that  girl  never  did  a 
day's  work  in  the  world  spent  his  last  dollar  to  get  that 
diamond  ring,  and  while  bands  played,  and  rainbows  danced 
round  him,  and  heaven  poured  its  glory  into  his  heart,  he 
put  it  on  her  finger. 

I  am  not  making  light  of  that  transaction;  that  ring  tells 
a  story  that  is  as  old  as  Adam  and  as  sacred  as  religion. 
But  why  did  he  put  that  ring  on  her  finger?  Because  he 
had  faith  in  her.  Why  did  she  permit  him  to  put  it  on  her 
finger?  She  had  faith  in  him.  Well  will  it  be  for  that  home 
if  they  "keep  tKe  faith."  I  heard  a  new  version  of  the 
marriage  covenant  the  other  day:  "We  promise  to  love, 
honor,  and  behave." 

It  seems  to  me  that  if  a  man  can,  and  indeed  desires  to 
trust  his  name  and  his  honor  and  the  immortal  souls  of  his 
children  to  a  woman,  he  ought  to  trust  the  God  who  made 
the  woman. 

Faith  underlies  all  government,  particularly  all  democratic 
government.  There  sat  around  a  table  in  France  four  men, 
the  Greek  Orlando,  the  French  Clemenceau,  a  little  Welsh 
giant  named  David  Lloyd  George,  and  a  Yankee  Puritan 
and  idealist  named  Weodrow  Wilson,  and  while  the  world 
looked  on  they  handled  the  destinies  of  nations  as  children 
play  with  cob  houses.  Why  were  they  permitted  to  do  it? 
Because  the  world  had  faith  in  them.  No  king  ever  had 
the  power  that  Woodrow  Wilson  had,  but  mark  you  how 
soon  it  faded  when  the  people  for  some  reason  or  other  began 
to  lose  their  faith  in  him. 

All  business  is  transacted  on  faith,  or  nearly  all  of  it. 
How  long  since  any  of  you  saw  a  ten-dollar  gold  piece?  I 
have  g,  recollection  of  seeing  one  at  one  time,  but  it  was  a 
long  time  ago.  I  believe  it  was  yellow.  We  do  not  see  them 
any  more.  About  all  we  have  is  paper  money  with  the 
promise  of  the  Government  or  some  bank  or  individual  on  it — 
and  indeed  most  of  our  business  is  done  on  personal  check.  It 
does  seem  to  me  if  we  can  trust  the  promises  of  men  on 
paper  we  ought  to  trust  the  promise  of  God  who  has  at- 
tached his  name  to  the  greatest  promissory  note  that  man 
ever  read. 

Faith  is  the  dynamic  that  moves  people  in   all  of  their 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


undertakings.  By  faith  men  plant,  believing  they  will 
reap.  By  faith  they  build,  believing  they  will  occupy.  By 
faith  they  explore,  thinking  they  will  discover.  By  faith 
Columbus  discovered  America. 

Faith  is  a  universal  instinct.  I  am  not  speaking  now  of 
faith  in  humanity,  but  of  faith  in  some  higher  power.  All 
races  of  men  have  some  form  of  religion,  and  have  always 
had  some  form  of  religion.  Every  idol,  no  matter  how  crude, 
stands  for  an  ideal ;  it  testifies  of  the  never-ending  search 
for  God  by  man.  But  on  the  other  hand  atheism  is  an 
artificial  culture,  not  spontaneous  in  the  heart:  it  must  be 
kept  alive  by  argumentation  and  breaks  down  in  every  great 
crisis. 

Faith  in  Law  the  Basis  of  Science 

Some  one  may  have  told  you  that  science  is  antagonistic 
to  religion,  but  the  greater  scientists  apparently  do  not 
take  that  view  of  the  question.  Lord  Kelvin  tells  us  that 
"science  positively  affirms  creative  power."  (Christian  Apolo- 
getics p.  25.)  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  tells  us  that  "religion  has  its 
roots  deep  down  in  the  heart  of  humanity  and  in  the  reality 
of  things."  (Continuity,  p.  106.)  Edgar  Lucien  Larkin,  head 
of  Lowe  Observatory,  says:  "There  is  not  a  great  scientist 
now  living  not  aware  of  the  existence  of  mind  in  the  Sidereal 
Universe — a  dominating  mind." — Within  the  Mind  Maze, 
p.  364. 

Some  day  you  may  meet  some  little  two-by-four  instructor 
who  has  read  two  or  three  pages  of  Darwin  who  may  tell  you 
that  religion  and  science  are  in  hopeless  conflict,  but  re- 
member the  statements  of  these  men,  and  no  keener  minds 
have  existed  in  our  time. 

Essentially  both  religion  and  science  rest  on  faith.  All 
of  the  sciences  are  based  on  faith  in  the  universality  of  law 
and  the  continuity  of  law.  Now  let  us  explain  that  for  a 
moment.  We  cannot  go  back  into  history  very  far,  that  is 
in  recorded  history.  We  may  go  back  to  Egypt,  Nineveh, 
and  Bablyon,  but  back  of  that  we  cannot  hope  to  find  any 
record  of  anything  even  approaching  scientific  observation; 
yet  science  has  the  most  implicit  faith  that  law  has  always 
been  in  force,  and  that  it  will  always  continue  without  change 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


or  deviation — that  law  is  the  same  now  as  it  was  millenniums 
ago,  and  will  so  continue  forever  and  forever. 

Sir  Oliver  Lodge  has  a  wonderful  lecture  on  "Continuity," 
and  bases  his  faith  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul  on  that  law. 

So  we  may  say  that  by  faith  geology  reads  the  prehistoric 
record  of  the  earth  as  it  was  written  in  the  rocks,  believing 
that  the  same  laws  were  in  force  then  that  are  in  force  now, 
in  other  words  basing  all  conclusions  on  faith  in  the  con- 
tinuity of  law. 

We  are  bound  by  the  forces  of  circumstances  to  this  old 
earth;  it  seems  to  us  to  be  a  stupendous  affair,  but  compared 
with  some  of  the  heavenly  bodies  it  is  almost  insignificant. 
It  would  be  insignificant  were  it  not  for  the  freight  it  bears 
of  human  souls,  human  aspirations,  and  human  destinies. 

We  are  limited  and  chained  to  this  little  old  earth  that 
Mark  Twain  dubbed  "the  wart."  It  is  true,  we  may  get  into 
an  airplane  and  travel  up  the  heavenly  speedway  for  a  few 
miles,  but  law  ever  reaches  after  us  and  pulls  us  back 
again.  All  we  can  touch  with  our  hands,  all  we  can  break 
to  pieces  with  a  hammer,  all  that  we  can  put  into  the  acid 
is  on  this  small  globe.  And  yet  science  has  faith  that  law  is 
universal.  What  a  stupendous  conception!  Talk  about  the 
faith  of  religion! 

If  a  man  could  start  to-night  for  the  most  distant  star 
that  can  be  seen  through  the  most  powerful  telescope  and 
travel  with  the  speed  of  an  express  train,  he  would  be  old 
and  dead  before  he  got  out  of  the  switch  yards ;  and  his  bones 
would  be  turned  to  dust  long  before  the  conductor  came  to  take 
up  his  ticket.  Yet  science  believes  that  in  that  far-away  star 
and  in  others  that  we  can  never  hope  to  see  with  any  in- 
strument, faith  reigns  universal.  So  we  may  say  that  by 
faith  science  weighs  the  stars.  And  by  faith  chemistry 
mixes  her  compounds. 

Science  rears  her  edifices  then  upon  faith  in  universal  and 
continuous  law;  while  religion  builds  her  temple  on  faith  in 
an  everlasting,  unchangeable,  universal  Lawgiver,  the  same 
yesterday-,  to-day,  and  forever,  without  beginning  or  ending 
of  years,  all  powerful,  all  wise. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


Faith  Bears  Her  Own  Credentials 

Faith  bears  her  own  credentials.  Doubt  is  negative  and 
usually  destructive.  Faith  is  affirmative  and  constructive. 
Why  not  ally  ourselves  with  the  builders,  and  certainly  if 
we  are  to  be  Zion  Builders,  we  shall  need  to  have  faith,  be- 
cause when  we  move  out  into  the  building  of  Zion  we  are 
undertaking  an  experiment  that  is  stupendous,  that  is  filled 
with  perils  as  well  as  possibilities.  We  must  have  faith  in 
the  God  who  promised  Zion  and  in  the  laws  that  will  redeem 
Zion,  and  more  than  that  we  must  have  faith  in  the  fellow 
men  who  work  with  us,  whether  they  be  general  church 
officials  or  local  officials,  in  the  endeavor  to  redeem  Zion.  If 
we  look  with  a  doubtful  eye  on  the  promises  of  God  we  will 
never  put  our  all  into  the  venture;  if  we  look  with  the  cold 
eye  of  suspicion  on  those  who  are  directing  the  destinies  of 
the  church  we  cannot  hope  to  cooperate  with  them  in  the 
redemption  of  Zion.  We  must  have  faith. 

Atheism  leads  inevitably  to  anarchy.  That  is  its  logical 
course.  Emma  Goldman  so  expressed  it  frankly  in  a  state- 
ment of  her  creed.  She  said,  "I  believe  in  no  God!"  And 
her  statement  followed  very  logically,  "I  believe  in  no  govern- 
ment! I  believe  in  no  marriage!  I  believe  in  no  property!" 
And  we  gave  her  a  free  ticket  to  Russia  where  she  hoped 
to  find  no  God,  and  no  government,  and  no  marriage,  and 
no  property. 

Atheism  leads  to  anarchy,  not  only  individually  but  nation- 
ally, and  only  a  short  time  ago  a  prominent  Jew,  the  presi- 
dent- of  the  chamber  of  commerce  in  Boston,  is  reported  to 
have  said,  "You  may  be  astonished  to  hear  me,  a  Jew,  say 
this;  but  in  my  opinion  we  stand  before  two  alternatives — 
either  anarchy  or  Jesus  Christ." 

Every  individual  in  his  own  life  faces  that  choice,  be- 
tween Jesus  Christ  or  anarchy.  Do  you  want  something, 
my  young  friends,  that  will  give  you  a  definite  purpose,  that 
will  give  you  abiding  principle?  Come  and  stand  with  me 
in  imagination  on  the  banks  of  the  Niagara  River  as  I  stood 
not  so  long  ago.  The  night  is  falling,  and  we  see  pushing 
out  over  the  waters  into  the  darkness  a  boat.  This  boat 
pursues  a  definite  course,  it  has  a  certain  goal  somewhere, 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  9 

it  speaks  of  purpose  and  of  power.  A  moment  later  we  see 
another  boat,  but  its  oars  are  drifting  in  the  water,  its 
rudder  swings  with  the  current,  it  is  directed  by  the  waves 
and  winds  of  chance,  and  it  is  going  down  stream  to  inevitable 
ruin. 

Haven't  you  seen  human  lives  that  bear  the  same  com- 
parison? One  young  man  starting  out  in  life  with  a  purpose 
and  ideals,  governed  by  principles  instead  of  .impulses,  while 
another  simply  allows  himself  to  drift?  My  young  people, 
I  want  you  during  these  meetings  to  make  a  decision ;  I  want 
you  to  compare  the  lives  of  some  men  you  may  observe  around 
you  and  see  what  kind  of  a  man  or  woman  you  want  to  be. 

Pardon  the  seeming  indelicacy  of  calling  names,  but  look 
at  some  of  the  young  men  in  the  community,  men  like  Floyd 
M.  McDowell,  Cyril  E.  Wight,  Harold  C.  Burgess,  or  Max 
Carmichael,  or  fifty  others  I  might  name,  who  are  endeavor- 
ing to  shape  their  lives  towards  a  certain  goal  that  they 
may  fit  their  lives  to  -serve  men,  which  is  the  service  of  God ; 
men  who  are  governed  by  principle,  not  by  impulse.  Then 
you  may  compare  them  with  the  hangers-on  of  society  whom 
you  see  in  every  village  and  city,  young  men  whose  only 
vocation  is  to  hang  around  street  corners  and  in  bum  restau- 
rants or  in  back  rooms  where  greasy  cards  are  shuffled;  who 
poison  the  air  with  tobacco  smoke,  render  it  discordant  with 
oaths,  and  ruin  the  appearance  of  society  by  projecting  into 
it  vicious  and  dissipated  faces.  Now  what  kind  of  man  do 
you  want  to  be? 

And  you  girls,  look  at  the  lives  of  some  of  the  women 
around  you  that  you  have  reason  to  admire,  young  women 
who  are  modest  and  wish  to  cultivate  themselves  that  they 
may  become  true  women.  Compare  them  with  some  of  the 
overpainted  and  underdressed  creatures  that  you  see  on  the 
street,  whose  only  desire  is  to  work  up  a  flirtation,  and  alas 
for  them,  the  only  kind  of  men  to  whom  they  may  appeal  is 
the  kind  of  creature  I  have  just  described. 

I  am  not  going  to  force  a  decision  on  you,  but  God  will 
force  it  on  you.  I  know  many  of  you  have  made  your 
decision,  and  made  it  right.  Steel  your  wills  during  these 
meetings  to  abide  by  your  decision.  But  if  there  are  some 
here  who  have  not  yet  made  a  decision,  God  will  plead  with 


10  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

them.  I  can  only  talk  with  them  for  forty-five  minutes,  but 
God's  Spirit  will  plead  with  them  when  no  one  is  by. 

I  wish,  oh,  how  I  wish,  I  could  help  even  one  of  them  to 
make  the  decision  that  he  would  be  a  man  of  principle  and 
of  power,  a  man  who  would  take  Jesus  Christ  to  be  his 
guide.  If  I  could  influence  even  one  to  do  that  during  these 
meetings,  I  would  be  well  repaid;  and  I  think  all  of  us  who 
have  helped  in  any  way  to  make  these  meetings  a  success 
would  have  drawn  out  rich  dividends  on  the  investment.  I 
would  rather  have  the  most  insignificant  share  in  that  kind 
of  an  enterprise  than  the  controlling  stock  in  the  great  Corn- 
stock  Mine  when  it  was  at  its  richest. 

Religion  gives  men  principles,  purpose,  faith,  power,  a 
definite  goal,  a  certain  course. 

The  Sound  Basis  of  Faith 

Faith  has  a  sound  basis.  Some  people  confuse  faith  with 
credulity.  But  credulity  has  its  root  in  ignorance.  Any  man 
can  be  credulous ;  the  halfwit  can  be  credulous ;  but  faith  calls 
for  the  keenest  minds  and  the  biggest  hearts  and  the  cleanest 
lives  that  ever  were  developed.  Faith  has  its  roots  in  ob- 
servation and  in  revelation,  and  the  two  meet  together  in 
one  soul  and  qualify  him  to  be  a  follower  of  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 

Faith  takes  its  stand  on  the  known  and  reaches  into  the 
unknown,  or  as  the  Apostle  Paul  tells  us  in  the  Roman 
letter  that  the  invisible  things  of  creation  are  understood 
by  the  things  that  are  seen.  When  we  study  creation,  it 
argues  the  existence  of  a  Creator,  to  say  the  least.  When  we 
see  a  painted  picture  we  know  there  was  an  artist  that 
painted  it;  the  colors  did  not  spontaneously  arrange  them- 
selves on  a  self-created  canvas.  We  see  a  house  and  we 
know  some  one  made  it.  Whe,n  we  see  creation,  we  reason 
that  back  of  it  is  a  Creator;  but  worlds  without  end  we  can- 
not find  him  out  by  human  observation  alone,  because  our 
eyes  are  fitted  to  see  material  things,  and  God  is  a  spirit. 

That  is  where  revelation  steps  in  and  reveals  to  us  his 
character  and  his  will  concerning  man,  so  the  two  meeting 
together,  observation  and  revelation,  create  and  upbuild  faith 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  11 

in   the   human  heart — neither  one  is   complete   without  the 
other. 

Faith  Taught  by  the  Revelations 

Faith  is  justified  by  our  consideration  and  contemplation 
of  the  written  revelations  of  God.  I  should  say  by  all  the 
revelations  God  has  given  to  us.  The  whole  body  of  the 
written  word  as  we  have  it  in  the  Bible,  in  the  Book  of  Mor- 
mon, and  in  the  Book  of  Covenants  appeals  to  man's  faith 
for  the  simple  reason  that  it  answers  his  spiritual  needs; 
it  gives  him  hope  where  otherwise  there  would  be  no  hope, 
brings  him  light  where  otherwise  there  would  be  no  light; 
so  I  say  the  whole  body  of  the  written  revelations  of  God 
appeals  to  the  faith  of  men  and  supplements  the  great  com- 
mandment that  Jesus  Christ  gave  when  he  said,  "Have  faith 
in  God." 

But  perhaps  even  greater  than  that  is  the  revelation  of 
God  that  we  have  in  the  character  and  life  of  Jesus  Christ 
himself.  I  want  to  tell  you,  my  young  friends,  that  the 
older  you  grow  and  the  more  you  contemplate  and  study  the 
character  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  more  wonderful  it  will  be- 
come to  you.  During  the  last  few  years  of  my  experience, 
there  is  one  thing  that  has  grown  bigger  and  bigger  to  me, 
grander  and  ever  more  grand,  and  that  is  the  character  and 
life  of  the  man  of  Galilee. 

One  autumn  evening  I  stood  on  the  very  summit  of  Mount 
Manitou.  About  me  were  the  mighty  granite  bowlders  and 
the  great  pine  trees,  and  there  spread  out  directly  at  my 
feet  lay  the  Colorado  plains.  I  could  look  over  them  for 
hundreds  of  miles  and  see  the  play  of  sunlight  and  Titanic 
shadows.  About  me  were  the  rush  and  roar  of  the  elements, 
because  it  was  storming  up  there  in  the  mountains.  And 
there  I  had  such  a  conception  as  I  had  never  known  before 
of  the  awful  majesty  and  power  of  Almighty  God.  It  was 
written  in  the  universe,  in  the  heavens,  and  in  the  rocks 
under  my  feet;  but  the  more  his  majesty  and  power  and 
greatness  were  borne  in  upon  me,  the  smaller  and  smaller 
and  more  insignificant  I  became  in  my  own  vision.  I  saw 
nothing  in  all  those  things  to  indicate  to  me  that  God  cared 
anything  for  me  or  that  there  was  any  more  possibility  that 


12  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

I  could  ever  communicate  with  him  or  have  fellowship  with 
him  than  there  was  for  the  ant  that  was  crushed  under  my 
foot. 

Then  there  came  to  me  the  absolute  necessity  that  Jesus 
Christ  should  come  into  the  world  in  the  flesh  to  reveal  to  us 
the  character  and  the  love  and  the  mercy  of  God  his  Father. 
The  mountains  revealed  to  me  a  God  of  power  and  of  do- 
minion, but  Jesus  Christ  came  into  my  life  revealing  to  me 
a  personal  God  of  love. 

The  law  of  Moses  came  out  of  Sinai  with  thunder  so  the 
children  of  Israel  hid  their  faces  and  they  said,  "Our  God  is 
a  terrible  God,"  but  Jesus  Christ  came  walking  along  the 
shores  of  Galilee  with  love  in  his  heart,  and  he  said,  "Come 
unto  me,  all  ye  who  labor  and  are  heavy  laden,  and  I  will 
give  you  rest."  I  thanked  God  for  the  revelation  of  Jesus 
Christ  as  I  stood  on  the  mountain.  It  was  as  though  some  one 
had  lighted  a  lamp  and  put  it  in  the  window  and  the  uni- 
verse had  a  new  meaning  for  me. 

The  War  Between  Faith  and  Doubt 

Now  in  conclusion,  my  brothers  and  sisters,  I  wish  to  pre- 
sent to  you  this  thought,  There  is  a  great  war  that  has  been 
going  on  for  centuries.  It  will  go  on  so  long  as  men  think. 
No  man  who  thinks  can  escape  it.  I  refer  to  the  war  between 
faith  and  doubt.  You  cannot  avoid  it.  You  cannot  escape 
the  war  between  faith  and  doubt;  but  you  can  make  your  de- 
cision and  you  can  choose  which  side  you  are  going  to  fight  on. 

You  can  stand  in  the  shadows  with  doubt  and  resist  the 
appeal  of  God  that  comes  into  your  heart  and  says,  "Believe 
in  me."  Or  you  can  stand  in  the  light  with  faith  and  resist 
the  encroachment  of  paralyzing  doubt  that  comes  into  your 
life  from  time  to  time.  You  need  not  be  surprised  that  you 
have  doubts.  Your  soul  is  a  battle  ground  between  God  and 
the  Devil,  and  the  very  fact  that  the  battle  is  raging  in  you 
shows  you  are  worth  consideration.  You  cannot  escape  the 
struggle.  You  can  only  choose  which  side  you  will  fight  on. 

Why  not  choose  to  fight  under  the  flag  of  King  Immanuel  ? 
I  call  to  mind  the  experience  of  the  life  of  one  of  our  most 
brilliant  elders  who  years  ago  was  in  the  field  but  was  con- 
stantly troubled  with  doubts.  He  doubted  this  and  he  doubted 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  13 

that,  and  finally  he  grew  tired  of  the  never-ending  struggle 
against  doubt  and  quit  his  ministry  and  finally  quit  the 
church,  thinking  he  would  find  peace.  But  he  did  not  escape 
that  war.  There  is  no  escape  from  that  war.  He  still  was 
torn  with  conflict,  while  he  lived,  but  the  trouble  with  him 
then  was  that  he  was  fighting  on  the  wrong  side.  Often  there 
came  into  his  mind  the  thought,  "Perhaps  after  all  it  was  the 
work  of  God;  perhaps  I  had  in  my  hands  the  pearl  of  great 
price,  and  I  have  simply  thrown  it  away.  Perhaps  God  gave 
me  a  trust  and  a  mission  and  I  did  not  prove  true  to  it."  He 
did  not  escape  the  fighting  or  find  peace,  but  instead  he  was 
found  fighting  on  the  wrong  side,  trying  to  resist  the  divine 
appeal  and  keeping  God  out  of  his  life. 

Our  call  to  you  is  to  enlist  on  the  side  of  faith,  and  though 
you  may  have  to  fight  all  your  life  against  doubts,  you  will  be 
fighting  under  the  banner  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  your  faith 
will  grow  brighter  and  brighter  and  finally  faith  will  lead  you 
to  the  knowledge  Alma  speaks  of  in  the  Book  of  Mormon. 
May  the  Spirit  and  the  grace  of  God  abide  with  you,  is  my 
prayer. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  15 


Repentance 


Sermon  by  Elbert  A.  Smith  in  Young  Peo- 
ple's Zion  Builder  Services,  Lamoni,  Iowa, 
March  14,  1921.  Reported  by  Winsome 
Smith  McDonald 

The  text  to-night  is  from  Mark  1: 15:  "The  time  is  fulfilled, 
and  the  kingdom  of  God  is  at  hand:  repent  ye,  and  believe 
the  gospel." 

The  Story  of  Cocklebur  Farm 

I  remember  how  some  years  ago  when  I  was  a  boy  living 
on  a  farm  in  the  northern  part  of  Iowa  there  was  a  farmer 
by  the  name  of  Fancher  who  owned  a  homestead,  and  one 
spring  when  plowing  his  corn  he  discovered  between  the  rows 
in  a  certain  place  a  new  plant;  at  least  it  was  entirely  new  to 
him.  As  that  was  a  new  country,  plants  from  the  East  had 
not  yet  moved  in  to  any  extent.  He  became  exceedingly  in- 
terested in  this  plant  and  plowed  around  it  very  carefully  and 
even  hoed  it  and  encouraged  it  to  grow  and  go  to  seed.  Verily 
his  patience  was  rewarded,  in  a  way,  because  it  turned  out  to 
be  nothing  but  an  ordinary,  and  as  we  say  in  Missouri,  an 
"ornery,"  pestiferous  cocklebur,  and  in  a  short  time  it  had 
seeded  his  whole  farm  and  had  spread  abroad  to  other  farms. 
His  homestead  became  headquarters  for  cockleburs  for  the 
whole  country.  His  farm  was  "Cocklebur  Ranch." 

If  you  have  never  worked  on  a  farm  you  don't  know  just 
how  mean  a  cocklebur  is.  It  is  one  of  the  criminals  of  the 
vegetable  kingdom.  It  attaches  itself  to  your  clothing  and 
rides  around  until  it  drops  off  in  some  fertile  field  and  starts 
a  new  colony  of  criminals,  just  like  the  effect  of  an  evil  exam- 
ple taking  root  in  other  lives.  You  can  hoe  a  cocklebur  off 
close  to  the  ground  and  in  a  week's  time  it  will  be  up  again. 
There  is  only  one  way  to  be  rid  of  them,  and  that  is  to  pull 
them  up  by  the  roots  and  burn  them  in  fire.  I  was  back  there 
last  summer  and  I  took  occasion  to  visit  that  old  place,  and 
it  is  yet  a  foul,  run-down,  unprofitable  farm.  Some  one  has 
to  repent  for  it  and  sweat  and  toil  and  dig  up  all  of  those 
cockleburs  and  make  corn  grow  in  their  place. 


16  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

Well,  you  say,  that  man  was  a  fool.  But  did  you  boys  and 
girls  ever  cultivate  cockleburs?  A  young  man  finds  a  bad 
habit  growing  up  in  his  life  and  immediately  he  wants  to  see 
what  it  will  amount  to;  he  becomes  profoundly  interested;  he 
cultivates  it  with  great  care,  and  presently  it  has  seeded  down 
his  whole  life,  and  perhaps  the  lives  of  some  of  his  neighbors. 
He  should  have  puHed  it  up  at  the  opportune  time.  And  so 
presently  with  sweat  and  with  tears,  and  with  great  exertion 
of  will  power,  he  must  root  up  every  one  of  those  cockleburs 
and  make  corn  grow  instead.  That  is  repentance. 

Analysis  of  the  Text 

Now  let  us  analyze  the  text.  When  is  the  time  to  repent? 
The  time  is  now .  "The  time  is  fulfilled."  Where  is  the  place 
to  repent?  The' place  is  here:  "The  kingdom  of  God  is  at 
hand"  Who  is  the  person  to  repent?  "Repent  ye,  and  believe 
the  gospel." 

These  sermons  are  to  be  doctrinal,  but  they  are  not  given 
over  entirely  to  the  expounding  of  cold  doctrinal  principle. 
We  want  an  appeal  to  go  with  them ;  and  if  there  is  one  in- 
dividual in  this  audience  who  has  that  in  his  life  that  should 
be  rooted  out,  the  commandment  to  him  on  this  occasion  is, 
"Your  time  is  fulfilled,  the  kingdom  of  God  has  come  unto 
you;  repent  ye,  and  believe  the  gospel."  Do  not  put  it  off;  at- 
tend to  it  during  this  very  series  of  meetings. 

The  admonition  to  repent  comes  to  us  first  in  the  form  of 
an  invitation,  in  Acts  3: 19:  "Repent  ye  therefore,  and  be  con- 
verted, that  your  sins  may  be  blotted  out,  when  the  times  of 
refreshing  shall  come  from  the  presence  of  the  Lord." 

We  are  gathered  here  for  a  great  revival  service,  a  time  of 
refreshing.  We  may  do  all  that  we  can,  and  I  thank  God 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart  for  this  noble  response  this  eve- 
ning— oh,  how  it  fills  my  soul  with  joy  to  think  you  are  stand- 
ing by  me.  On  Monday  night  when  I  thought  many  seats 
would  be  empty  they  are  all  fiPed,  and  you  are  here  to  sup- 
port us  in  this  work;  you  are  willing  to  do  your  part,  and  all 
that  God  has  given  me  of  strength  of  body,  clearness  of  mind, 
or  faith  of  heart,  or  love  of  soul,  I  am  willing  to  pour  out  on 
the  altar  of  service  in  these  meetings.  Yet  when  it  is  all  said 
and  done,  we  must  bow  and  say,  "Lord,  it  isn't  very  much. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  17 

We  wait  for  the  times  of  refreshing  from  the  presence  of  the 
Lord."  The  revival  comes  from  above. 

If  we  need  to  repent  of  anything  let  us  repent,  that  our  sins 
may  be  blotted  out  in  this  time  of  refreshing  sent  from  the 
heavenly  Father. 

The  call  to  repent  comes  to  us  next  in  warning,  where  the 
Master  says,  "Except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  likewise  perish." 
—Luke  13:3. 

The  Nature  of  Repentance 

Repentance  may  be  of  a  twofold  nature;  first,  there  is  a 
worldly  form  of  repentance  that  consists  merely  in  being  sorry 
when  one  is  caught  and  about  to  be  punished. 

Not  long  ago  in  the  city  of  Los  Angeles  two  men  kidnapped 
a  young  married  woman  and  took  her  to  an  old  shack  and 
held  her  for  ransom.  One  of  these  men  drove  into  Los  Ange- 
les and  called  the  husband  by  telephone  and  asked  him  to 
guarantee  the  ransom.  A  telephone  operator  overheard  the 
conversation,  called  the  police,  and  when  the  villain  stepped 
out  of  the  booth  two  burly  policemen  waited  one  on  either 
side  of  the  door.  He  was  caught.  You  never  saw  a  man  re- 
pent more  quickly  than  he  did.  He  was  sorry.  What  was  he 
sorry  for?  He  was  sorry  he  was  caught.  He  was  sorry  he 
was  about  to  be  punished. 

The  Apostle  Paul  tells  us  in  2  Corinthians  7: 10:  "The  sor- 
row of  the  world  worketh  death."  Now  what  is  the  philosophy 
of  this?  It  is  simply  that  when  a  man's  repentance  consists 
in  being  sorry  he  is  caught,  the  only  effect  had  on  him  is  to 
cause  him  to  resolve  that  he  will  do  the  same  thing  again  but 
will  be  a  little  more  careful,  from  which  is  evolved  the  philos- 
ophy of  the  world,  "If  you  cannot  be  good,  be  careful!"  This 
works  death,  because  no  matter  how  careful  a  man  is  the 
Bible  says,  "Be  not  deceived;  God  is  not  mocked:  for  whatso- 
ever a  man'soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap." — Galatians  6:  7. 
That  kind  of  repentance  deceives  a  man  and  leads  him  on  until 
eventually  it  ends  in  destruction. 

There  has  been  a  great  deal  of  discussion  about  deathbed 
repentance.  It  seems  to  me  that  deathbed  repentance  has  in 
it  these  very  elements  of  worldliness.  People  sometimes 
think,  "This  repentance  is  a  good  thing.  I  will  wait,  and  have 


18  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

a  good  time  while  I  am  young.  I  will  accumulate  the  things 
of  this  world,  and  when  I  get  to  be  about  eight-five  years  old 
and  about  to  die  I  will  repent  and  get  all  there  is  out  of  re- 
pentance and  get  into  glory  and  so  beat  the  game  both  ways 
in  both  worlds." 

That  is  a  little  like  the  Jew  we  heard  of.  Two  Jews  were 
riding  on  a  train,  so  the  story  goes.  One  owed  the  other 
fifty  dollars,  and  number  two  had  tried  to  get  it  time  and 
again.  While  they  were  on  the  train  a  bandit  came  into  the 
car  with  pistols  in  his  hands  to  rob  the  passengers.  Number 
one  took  out  his  pocketbook  and  handed  number  two  fifty 
dollars,  saying,  "Here,  Jacob,  iss  the  fifty  dollars  I  owe  you 
so  long." 

So  some  think  they  will  accumulate  all  the  things  of  this 
world  and  hold  them  until  the  bandit  of  death  has  his  pistol 
on  them,  and  then  repent.  It  won't  work! 

But  there  is  a  godly  repentance  which  Paul  says  "worketh 
sorrow  that  needeth  not  to  be  repented  of."  (2  Corinthians 
7:  10.)  That  is  the  true  repentance,  and  as  we  are  told  in 
Matthew  3:8,  it  brings  forth  "fruit  meet  for  repentance"; 
that  is,  it  bears  in  the  life  of  the  individual  the  kind  of  fruit 
that  is  a  clear  indication  that  it  is  a  real,  genuine,  godly  re- 
pentance. Isaiah  gives  us  to  understand  that  repentance  in- 
cludes ceasing  to  do  evil  and  learning  to  do  good.  (Isaiah 
1: 16,  17.)  We  must  pull  out  the  cockleburs  and  plant  corn 
in  their  place. 

We  are  given  to  understand,  at  least  by  implication,  that 
repentance  includes  restitution.  Zaccheus,  as  you  will  re- 
member, was  a  publican  and  a  sinner.  He  was  a  little  man, 
so  when  the  Savior  passed  through  the  streets  he  had  to 
climb  a  tree  to  see  over  the  crowd  and  see  the  Master.  He 
was  a  small  man,  but  in  some  regards  he  was  bigger  than  a 
great  many  Christians,  because  he  said,  "If  I  have  taken  any- 
thing from  any  man  by  false  accusation,  I  restore  him  four- 
fold."—Luke  19:  8. 

We  received  a  letter  a  year  or  two  ago  from  a  district 
president  in  the  West  in  which  he  said  he  had  converted  a 
man  who  desired  to  be  baptized,  but  that  the  man  made  a 
confession  that  twenty  years  ago  he  burned  his  house  and  col- 
lected the  insurance.  He  wished  to  know  what  to  do  about  it. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  19 

We  advised  that  if  that  insurance  company  were  still  in  busi- 
ness he  should  restore  the  money,  together  with  interest. 

Whenever  a  man  can  do  so  he  ought  to  make  restitution. 
Of  course,  as  some  have  pointed  out,  there  are  things  that 
cannot  be  restored.  If  you  trample  a  lily  into  the  mire  under 
your  brutal  foot,  you  may  be  sorry  for  it,  and  you  may  try 
to  make  it  stand  upright,  but  worlds  without  end  you  cannot 
restore  it  to  its  natural  beauty.  If  you  destroy  the  purity  of 
a  woman  or  the  virtue  of  a  man,  you  can  never  restore  that 
which  you  have  destroyed.  But  God  is  merciful,  and  he  does 
not  require  the  impossible  of  any  man;  he  does  require,  how- 
ever, that  when  individuals  repent  they  shall  make  the  wrong 
right,  if  possible  to  do  so.  It  has  a  splendid  influence  on  hu- 
man character. 

The  Story  of  a  Penny 

I  remember  how  when  I  was  about  five  years  old  I  went 
into  a  grocery  store,  and  there  on  the  counter  lay  a  new 
penny.  No  one  seemed  to  be  watching  it — or  watching  me.  I 
looked  at  that  penny.  I  was  tempted  as  much  as  any  bank 
teller  ever  was  tempted  by  a  million  dollars.  Children  do  not 
weigh  values.  They  would  rather  have  a  new  penny  than  an 
old  ten-dollar  gold  piece,  'and  that  penny  had  all  the  power 
of  the  Devil  wrapped  up  in  it.  I  walked  past  it  and  I  came 
back  and  looked  at  it.  I  looked  around,  no  one  was  watching, 
so  I  put  it  in  my  pocket,  and  went  away  feeling  that  I  had 
"thief"  written  across  my  forehead.  !»tried  to  rub  it  off  and 
went  home  to  my  mother. 

Mothers  have  a  sort  of  X-ray  attachment.  They  know  when 
you  have  been  swimming,  and  when  you  have  been  in  the 
jam  pot,  and  when  you  have  stolen  a  penny.  My  mother 
looked  right  through  me  and  saw  that  penny.  Do  you  know 
what  I  had  to  do  ?  I  had  to  go  to  that  store,  and  marching  in 
before  all  the  customers,  say,  "Mr.  Groceryman,  I  stole  this 
penny.  I  am  sorry.  Here  it  is.  I  will  never  do  so  again." 
I  never  had  the  least  desire  after  that  to  steal. 

The  Objective  of  Repentance 

What  is  the  objective  of  repentance  ?    It  has  a  twofold  ob- 
jective.   The  first  object  is  to  get  right  with  God,  or  as  the 
icnition  is,  "Be  ye  reconciled  to  God." — 2  Corinthians  5: 


20  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

20.  This  is  an  exceedingly  important  consideration,  to  adjust 
ourselves  to  God.  D.  T.  Williams  says,  "When  a  man's  watch 
is  wrong,  he  doesn't  attempt  to  reach  up  into  the  sky  and  set 
the  sun  by  his  watch;  instead  he  sets  his  watch  by  the  sun. 
He  could  not  change  the  sun,  and  if  he  could  it  would  be  an 
ill-advised  thing  to  do,  because  everyone  else  might  undertake 
to  do  the  same  thing." 

Yet  the  confession  of  faith  of  one  of  the  most  popular 
churches  made  that  mistake.  That  confession  said  that  Jesus 
Christ  was  manifest  in  the  flesh  that  he  might  reconcile  God 
to  man.  Some  one  has  reached  and  tried  to  set  God  by  man's 
watch.  I  am  not  here  to  attack  churches,  but  I  wish  they 
would  correct  that  statement.  If  I  saw  a  man  attempting 
to  drive  down  the  street  with  the  cart  ahead  of  his  horse,  I 
should  advise  him  to  turn  them  about,  and  that  creed  has  the 
cart  ahead  of  the  horse. 

Jesus  Christ  did  not  come  to  reconcile  God  to  man  in  any 
sense  of  the  word.  He  came  to  set  man  by  God's  watch.  This 
is  a  fundamental  thought  because  it  has  a  great  bearing  on 
the  atonement  of  Jesus  Christ.  Did  he  come  and  suffer  and 
die  on  the  cross  that  a  sullen,  vindictive,  and  offended  God, 
looking  on,  might  at  last  be  melted  and  pleased  and  say, 
"Well,  perhaps  I  will  forgive,  and  come  down  and  reconcile 
myself  to  man"  ?  Do  you  believe  that  ?  Nothing  of  the  kind, 
absolutely.  There  were  reasons  why  Jesus  Christ  was  mani- 
fested in  the  flesh,  and  one  was  to  interpret  God  to  us.  We 
cannot  understand  Go3  in  the  abstract.  During  all  past  ages 
man  has  attempted  to  visualize  God  individually.  A1!  the 
idols  that  have  been  were  but  an  effort  to  make  something  to 
look  at,  to  help  man's  mind  to  picture  and  understand  the 
abstract  idea  of  God.  So  Jesus  Christ  came  to  give  us  an 
objective  lesson. 

And  there  are  reasons  why  he  suffered  on  the  cross,  not 
that  he  should  reconcile  God  to  man,  but  among  other  things 
that  he  should  break  the  hard  hearts  of  men  and  turn  them 
towards  our  heavenly  Father,  and  there  never  has  lived  a 
man  who  came  to  understand  the  mission  of  Christ  and  his 
matchless  love  that  it  did  not  have  that  effect  on  him.  Every 
man  sooner  or  later  will  hear  the  gospel  so  that  he  will  un- 
derstand, and  for  that  reason  Jesus  says,  "If  I  be  lifted  up 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  21 

I  will  draw  all  men  unto  me."  (John  12:  32.)  Some  men  will 
go  a  long  way  and  receive  celestial  glory;  some  men  will  go 
part  way  and  receive  a  lesser  glory;  and  some  men  will  turn 
back  and  not  receive  any;  but  sooner  or  later  they  will  all  feel 
the  matchless  power  of  the  Son  of  God  who  was  lifted  up  on 
the  cross. 

So  we  read  along  this  line  in  2  Corinthians  5: 18-20,  "And 
all  things  are  of  God,  who  hath  reconciled  us  to  himself  by 
Jesus  Christ,  and  hath  given  to  us  the  ministry  of  reconcilia- 
tion; to  wit,  that  God  was  in  Christ,  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself.  .  .  .  Now  then  we  are  ambassadors  for  Christ, 
as  though  God  did  beseech  you  by  us:  we  pray  you  in  Christ's 
stead,  be  ye  reconciled  to  God." 

That  is  the  substance  of  my  sermon  to-night  put  into  a  few 
words,  "Be  ye  reconciled  to  God."  I  cannot  sound  that  into 
your  ears  with  the  force  I  wish  I  could,  but  there  is  another 
preacher  in  this  room  to-night.  He  has  been  here  during  this 
series  of  meetings  from  the  beginning,  and  with  His  still  small 
voice,  though  you  see  Him  not,  He  searches  you  out,  and  He 
whispers  into  your  hearts,  "Be  ye  reconciled  to  God." 

My  advice  is  that  you  heed  that  admonition,  for  Jesus 
Christ  says,  "Behold,  I  stand  at  the  door,  and  knock;  if  any 
man  hear  my  voice,  and  open  the  door,  I  will  come  in  to  him, 
and  will  sup  with  him  and  he  with  me." — Revelation  3 : 20. 
This  is  your  opportunity. 

But  repentance  has  another  objective.  First  to  adjust  our- 
selves to  God,  and  next  to  adjust  ourselves  to  our  fellow  men. 
This  is  the  very  essence  of  religion,  to  get  right  with  God  an'd 
to  get  right  with  our  fellow  men.  So  some  one  has  very  wisely 
said  that  it  takes  three  persons  to  live  the  Christian  religion. 
Some  one  may  ask,  Cannot  one  man  live  it?  No,  not  alone. 
He  must  first  come  into  communion  with  his  God;  that  is 
two;  and  then  he  must  make  himself  right  with  his  brother; 
that  is  three.  That  is  the  eternal  triangle,  the  man  and  his 
God  and  his  brother.  There  must  continuously  be  fellowship 
flowing  from  every  point  of  the  triangle  or  a  man  is  not  liv- 
ing his  religion.  If  his  intercourse  and  fellowship  is  broken 
with  his  fellow  men,  it  breaks  his  intercourse  with  God. 

Let  us  see  if  that  is  not  true.  "Therefore  if  thou  bring  thy 
gift  to  the  altar,  and  there  rememberest  that  thy  brother 


22  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

hath  ought  against  thee;  leave  there  thy  gift  before  the 
altar,  and  go  thy  way;  first  be  reconciled  to  thy  brother,  and 
then  come  and  offer  thy  gift." — Matthew  5:  23,  24.  Here  is  a 
man  who  is  trying  to  get  right  with  God.  There  is  God  in 
the  heavens.  Here  is  an  altar,  and  here  is  the  man  who  has 
brought  his  gift,  but  something  is  between  him  and  his 
brother,  and  the  Lord  says,  "Before  you  and  I  can  enter  into 
communion  you  have  to  make  it  right  with  this  man,  and  when 
you  have  made  it  right  with  him  and  the  triangle  is  com- 
plete, then  come  back  to  the  altar  and  give  the  gift,  and  I 
will  be  very  glad  to  receive  it." 

That  is  the  very  basis  of  the  building  of  Zion,  the  establish- 
ment of  a  fellowship  that  shall  include  a  continuous  commun- 
ion with  God  and  a  continuous  fellowship  with  man. 

This  objective  of  getting  right  with  God  and  man  under 
repentance  is  greatly  helped  by  confession.  Whether  the  con- 
fession is  private  or  public  depends  to  a  great  extent  upon  the 
nature  of  the  offense.  A  young  man  had  done  wrong  and 
everyone  knew  about  it,  and  at  our  late  revival  services  in 
Independence  in  the  presence  of  one  thousand  young  people 
this  young  man  stood  up  in  prayer  meeting  and  made  his  con- 
fession. I  presume  there  was  not  a  heart  in  that  room  but 
was  enlisted  on  his  side,  and  he  had  a  thousand  friends.  Con- 
fession serves  many  purposes,  and  it  is  a  great  aid  toward 
the  objective  in  getting  right  with  God  and  your  fellow  men. 

The  Great  Story  of  the  Prodigal  Son 

Now  this  theme  would  not  be  complete,  no  sermon  on  re- 
pentance is  complete  without  an  analysis  of  the  great  story 
of  the  prodigal  son  which  we  have  read  for  our  scripture 
reading.  There  can  be  no  question  that  when  Jesus  told  this 
story  he  meant  that  the  father  should  represent  God,  and  the 
prodigal  son  should  represent  any  sinner  who  has  need  of  re- 
pentance. 

Let  us  consider  then  the  attitude  of  the  son.  In  the  first 
place,  this  young  man  was  absolutely  impervious  to  reason. 
It  did  not  do  any  good  to  advise  with  him.  The  experience  of 
others  meant  nothing  to  him.  He  had  his  inheritance.  He 
intended  to  use  it  as  he  pleased. 

In  the  second  place,  he  fell  a  victim  to  the  "lure  of  the  far 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  23 


country."  That  is  a  high-sounding  term.  Where  is  that  far 
country?  It  may  be  under  the  bright  lights  of  New  York  City 
(in  this  century)  or  in  Chicago,  or  it  may  be  just  down  town 
in  Lamoni,  or  just  around  the  corner  in  any  village  in  some 
back  room  where  men  gather  to  drink  bootlegged  whisky  or 
play  cards  or  congregate  with  immoral  women.  It  is  a  far 
country  in  the  sense  that  it  is  a  long  way  from  your  father's 
house,  and  it  is  absolutely  a  foreign  country  as  compared  with 
the  spirit  of  that  home  where  you  were  raised  by  a  godly 
father  and  where  to-night  perhaps  your  mother  on  bended 
knees  pleads  for  you  at  the  throne  of  grace. 

In  the  next  place,  when  he  had  reached  that  country  he 
squandered  his  inheritance.  What  is  our  inheritance?  It 
may  be  money,  it  may  be  land,  it  may  be  good  health,  it  may 
be  a  good  character  that  can  be  lost,  it  may  be  a  good  name 
that  your  father  has  handed  down  to  you,  a  name  that  has 
been  known  in  the  community  for  honor  and  integrity  for 
many  years,  and  that  you  may  smirch  in  a  single  month  by 
a  life  of  folly.  Your  inheritance  may  be  all  of  these  things 
or  any  one  of  them.  Anyway  this  young  man  squandered  his 
inheritance,  and  then  he  discovered  he  had  no  friends. 

When  a  man  squanders  his  inheritance,  the  gang  with  whom 
he  has  associated  will  soon  leave  him  alone,  and  this  young 
man  was  left  in  a  pitiable  condition.  He  was  reduced  to  the 
straits  of  taking  care  of  hogs.  Jesus  was  a  master  story- 
teller. He  was  talking  to  Jews,  and  you  know  the  Jew  despises 
a  hog,  and  so  he  drew  them  a  picture  in  which  the  prodigal 
became  an  attendant  of  hogs,  the  ultimate  degradation.  He 
was  even  willing  and  anxious  to  eat  the  stuff  they  were  feed- 
ing the  swine. 

And  in  this  condition  we  are  told  he  "came  to  himself,"  or 
as  you  young  people  might  say,  he  "tumbled  to  himself."  It 
is  a  good  thing  for  a  man  to  "tumble  to  himself"  and  wake  up 
and  see  where  he  is  and  what  he  looks  like  to  other  people. 
He  came  at  last  to  himself,  to  his  right  mind,  and  he  said,  "I 
have  sinned  before  God  and  before  my  father,  and  I  will  hasten 
home."  This  young  man  went  home  repentant  and  humble. 
He  did  not  come  back  like  some  young  men  might,  saying, 
"Father,  I  am  back.  Bring  on  the  fatted  calf.  I  hope  it  is  in 
good  shape."  He  came  right  down  in  the  depths  of  humility 


24  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

and  said,  "Father,  I  have  sinned  against  heaven,  and  before 
thee,  and  am  no  more  worthy  to  be  called  thy  son:  inake  me 
as  one  of  thy  hired  servants." — Luke  15: 18,  19.  That  was 
the  attitude  of  the  son;  that  was  genuine  repentance. 

Now  what  was  the  attitude  of  the  father?  The  father  had 
never  cast  the  son  off.  He  did  not  disinherit  him.  The  son 
lost  the  inheritance  himself.  The  father  had  always  loved 
him;  and  so  with  God.  He  did  not  hate  humanity.  Jesus  did 
not  have  to  come  and  bribe  the  Father;  but  we  are  told  that 
"God  so  loved  the  world,  that  he  gave  his  only  begotten  Son, 
that  whosoever  believeth  in  him  should  not  perish,  but  have 
everlasting  life."  (John  3:  16.) 

God  always  loved  man.  He  loved  man  before  Christ  came. 
So  the  father  saw  this  boy  coming  a  long  ways  off.  There  is 
no  eye  so  keen  as  the  eye  of  a  father  or  mother  who  waits  a 
boy  returning  home;  and  there  is  no  eye  so  keen  as  God's  eye 
that  sees  into  our  hearts  before  others  read  it  in  our  counte- 
nance that  we  are  inclined  to  return  to  our  Father's  house. 
So  the  father  ran  out  and  met  him  half  way,  and  greeted 
him  with  kisses,  and  made  him  welcome,  and  put  a. ring  on 
his  finger  and  a  robe  on  him,  and  said,  "This  my  son  was 
dead,  and  is  alive  again;  he  was  lost,  and  is  found." — Luke 
15:  24. 

This,  the  Master  wants  us  to  understand,  is  the  attitude  of 
God,  and  he  tells  us  there  is  joy  in  heaven  over  one  sinner 
that  is  returned;  so  you  need  not  hesitate,  you  need  not  feel 
slow  about  confessing  anything  you  may  have  done  that  is 
wrong,  and  take  the  necessary  steps  that  will  return  you  to 
God  and  to  fellowship  with  the  church.  The  Lord  will  by  no 
means  resist  your  advancements;  neither  will  he  cast  you  off. 

The  Gospel  Mirror 

There  is  another  beautiful  story  that  is  told  in  James,  the 
first  chapter.  It  is  a  story  of  the  gospel  mirror,  "But  be  ye 
doers  of  the  word,  and  not  hearers  only,  deceiving  your  own 
selves.  For  if  any  be  a  hearer  of  the  word,  and  not  a  doer, 
he  is  like  unto  a  man  beholding  his  natural  face  in  a  glass: 
for  he  beholdeth  himself,  and  goeth  his  way,  and  straightway 
forgetteth  what  manner  of  man  he  was.  But  whoso  looketh 
into  the  perfect  law  of  liberty,  and  continueth  therein,  he  be- 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  25 

ing  not  a  forgetful  hearer,  but  a  doer  of  the  work,  this  man 
shall  be  blessed  in  his  deed."— James  1:  22-25. 

Here  we  have  a  picture  in  words  that  anyone  can  under- 
stand. It  hardly  needs  an  explanation.  A  man  looks  into  a 
mirror  and  sees  himself.  He  sees  defects  there  that  need 
correction;  but  if  he  goes  away  and  forgets  to  make  the  nec- 
essary change,  it  has  not  benefited  him.  If  he  does  make  the 
necessary  change,  he  has  been  blessed.  It  does  everyone  good 
to  look  into  a  mirror  occasionally.  No  need  to  stand  in  front 
of  it  too  much,  but  mirrors  and  soap  and  water  and  towels 
are  agents  of  civilization  and  righteousness. 

But  suppose  one  of  the  young  men  of  the  college  football 
team  should  come  in  after  playing  .on  a  hot  afternoon  till 
his  clothing  was  saturated  with  sweat  and  his  face  black  with 
dust  turned  to  mud,  and  coming  into  the  dormitory  he  should 
look  into  a  full  length  mirror,  and  should  see  himself  in  all 
his  beauty  ( ? ) ,  and  then  should  go  away  and  forget  all  about 
it,  and  in  the  evening .  go  to  the  banquet  to  meet  with  the 
boys  and  girls  of  Graceland,  and  the  visiting  team  as  well. 
Suppose  he  should  get  in,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  banquet 
should  suddenly  think  of  the  picture  in  the  mirror;  he  would 
be  one  of  the  most  unhappy  men  on  earth. 

You  people  are  looking  into  the  gospel  mirror  during  this 
series  of  meetings,  and  in  these  prayer  services  such  as  we 
had  on  Sunday,  and  you  are  seeing  not  only  the  doctrines  of 
Christ,  but  it  is  showing  you  what  you  are.  I  do  not  need  to 
call  out  John  Smith  or  anyone  by  name  and  tell  this  audi- 
ence what  he  has  been  doing;  you  know  what  you  have  been 
.doing,  and  when  you  look  into  the  mirror  you  see  the  things 
in  your  life  that  need  correcting.  Friend,  are  you  going  to 
go  away  and  profit  by  it,  or  are  you  going  to  go  away  and 
forget  it?  By  and  by  when  the  marriage  supper  comes,  if 
you  find  yourself  so  unfortunate  as  to  get  in  there  in  your 
soiled  clothing,  how  will  you  feel  then?  I  will  tell  you.  I 
know. 

Some  years  ago  when  I  lived  in  Lamoni,  I  had  a  great  many 
chores  to  do  about  the  place,  and  one  evening  I  heard  that  a 
particular  friend  of  mine,  a  man  from  California,  was  to 
preach;  so  I  rushed  around'  and  did  the  various  jobs  of  work 
that  had  to  be  done,  and  being  late  I  hurried  off  to  church 


26  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

and  got  a  seat  in  the  audience  under  a  bright  light.  In  the 
middle  of  the  sermon  I  looked  down  and,  lo,  I  had  on  my  old, 
dirty,  greasy,  work  coat  with  the  sleeves  torn  off  near  the  el- 
bows. I  spent  about  the  worst  half  hour  I  have  experienced 
in  my  life,  and  at  the  close,  when  the  preacher  said  amen,  I 
got  into  my  overcoat  and  sneaked  out.  I  imagine  that  if  a 
man  with  the  filth  of  this  world  on  his  garments  should  be 
so  unfortunate  as  to  get  into  heaven  in  the  midst  of  the  pure 
and  the  good,  there  would  be  such  a  thing  as  being  in  hell 
in  heaven. 

You  young  men  do  not  run  that  risk  when  you  come  from 
the  football  game.  You  get  under  the  shower,  and  you  change 
your  clothing.  You  put  on  clean  clothing  and  a  clean  collar 
and  a  clean  tie,  and  you  go  to  the  banquet  looking  like  the 
gentleman  you  are. 

We  are  all  interested  in  this  church.  By  and  by,  Jesus 
Christ  is  going  to  serve  a  great  feast  when  the  church  and 
the  bridegroom  will  be  united.  The  church  will  have  on  pure 
garments  which  are  the  garments  of  righteousness,  and  those 
who  have  on  the  wedding  garments  clean  and  white  will  come 
in  and  they  will  be  happy.  If  men  haven't  the  wedding  gar- 
ments on,  no  one  would  need  tell  them  to  leave.  They  will  be 
glad  to  leave. 

The  gospel  mirror  shows  us  what  we  are,  and  it  shows  us 
what  we  may  become. 

The  Tiger  and  the  Derelict 

You  young  people  are  entering  upon  what  may  be  to  you  a 
terrific  struggle,  the  struggle  of  life.  The  forces  of  good  and 
of  evil  are  struggling  within  you,  and  it  is  a  question  which 
will  be  victorious.  Every  man  has  that  fight. 

I  remember  reading  a  strange  and  weird  tale  when  I  was 
a  little  boy.  It  appealed  to  my  imagination.  I  suppose  I 
should  not  have  read  it  at  all.  It  was  about  a  captain  and 
crew  who  were  on  the  ocean  in  their  ship,  and  one  morning 
they  heard  the  muffled  tolling  of  a  bell  coming  to  them  over 
the  waves.  They  were  miles  from  any  land,  but  they  could 
hear  the  funeral  toll  of  that  bell.  That  appealed  to  my  imag- 
ination as  a  boy.  Finally  they 'sighted  the  hulk  of  an  old 
ship  without  mast  or  sails,  wallowing  in  the  trough  of  the 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  27 

sea.  A  bell  had  been  rigged  up  to  the  stump  of  a  mast,  and 
when  the  ship  rolled  it  tolled  the  bell.  I  can  hear  it  yet. 

They  drew  alongside  of  this  strange  ship,  and  as  they  did 
so  there  seemed  to  be  no  life  on  board,  yet  they  heard  a  ter- 
rible roar,  as  from  some  wild  animal.  I  can  hear  that  roar 
yet!  Yoi*  know  children  have  a  wonderful  imagination.  My 
little  boy  said  the  other  day,  "Daddy,  I  see  some  mighty  queer 
things  at  night  when  the  lights  are  turned  out.  One  night  I 
could  just  see  my  clothes  in  the  dark,  and  it  seemed  as  if 
they  just  raised  up  and  started  for  me."  Well,  I  could  hear 
that  bell  and  that  roar  after  I  had  gone  to  bed. 

They  landed  on  the  ship  with  their  rifles  and  battered  open 
the  hatches  and  went  down  into  the  evil-smelling  cabin,  and 
there  they  saw  a  half-starved  Bengal  tiger,  which  they  killed. 
And  in  one  corner  of  the  cabin  they  found  the  skeleton  of  a 
man,  and  the  leaves  of  a  diary  that  he  had  been  writing.  The 
story  was  that  this  man  had  been  put  there  by  pirates,  and 
the  tiger  had  been  chained  with  a  little  chain  which  would 
break  when  he  grew  hungry  and  violent.  So  day  by  day  the 
man  wrote  his  story  until  one  day  it  came  to  an  end. 

That  queer  tale  made  a  wonderful  impression  on  me.  You 
will  say  such  a  thing  as  that  never  happened,  but  hundreds  of 
times  I  have  seen,  on  the  sea  of  life,  the  battered  wrecks  of 
men  in  which  the  beast  had  killed  the  man — the  beast  of  ap- 
petite and  passion  and  lust  and  greed.  You  have  but  to  look 
around  you  and  see  .it.  It  is  the  business  of  the  gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ  to  kill  the  beast  and  redeem  the  man. 

This  struggle  goes  on.  You  cannot  escape  it>.  Under  the 
influences  of  these  meetings  you  have  noble  desires.  If  a  bad 
thought  came  into  your  heart  you  would  cast  it  out;  but  to- 
morrow some  awful,  contemptible  temptation  may  take  hold 
of  you  and  wrestle  for  your  life.  And  you  will  think,  What 
kind  of  a  man  am  I  that  I  should  change  so  ?  Don't  you 
have  those  experiences  ?  Haven't  I  ?  Don't  you  have  to  make 
the  fight?  You  need  not  be  ashamed.  It  is  the  forces  of  good 
and  of  evil  fighting  for  your  soul,  and  that  indicates  you  are 
a  man,  a  potential  man,  and  both  God  and  the  Devil  want  you. 
You  are  a  potential  good  man,  and  God  wants  to  make  you, 
and  the  Devil  wants  to  destroy  you.  That  is  what  distin- 
guishes you  from  the  animal — from  vegetables.  Hogs  are  not 


28  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

tempted.  Cabbages  have  no  conscience.  Pumpkins  do  not 
debate  right  and  wrong.  It  is  men  that  battle  between  right 
and  wrong. 

The  Devil  told  a  half  truth  when  he  said  we  should  become 
as  the  gods,  knowing  right  and  wrong,  so  it  has  become  the 
province  of  man  to  know  right  and  wrong  and  fiave  the 
strength  to  do  the  right  and  resist  the  wrong. 

So  do  not  be  discouraged  because  temptations  come  into 
your  soul.  Every  man  has  them.  Whittier  wrote  a  poem 
about  the  "two  voices"  that  held  debate  in  his  heart,  one  ad- 
vocating wrong,  the  other  pleading  for  right.  Tennyson  wrote 
of  two  "moods."  The  Apostle  Paul  says,  "When  I  would  do 
good,  evil  is  present  with  me.  .  .  .  But  I  see  another  law  in 
my  members  warring  against  the  law  of  my  mind." — Romans 
7:  21-23. 

But  it  is  the  business  of  the  man,  it  is  the  crowning  glory 
of  the  man  to  buckle  on  his  armor,  and  struggle,  and  the 
more  terrific  the  struggle — the  greater  the  glory.  It  is  the 
crowning  glory  of  a  man  to  stand  up  and  be  a  man  and  put 
down  temptation,  and  put  evil  out  of  his  life;  he  can  do  that 
only  through  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 


Zion  Builders'1  Sermons  29 


Baptism 


Sermon  by  Elbert  A.  Smith  in  Zion  Builder 
Series,  Lamoni,  Tuesday,  March  15,  1921. 
Reported  by  R.  A.  Wight  and  Estella  Wight. 

"Therefore  let  all  the  house  of  Israel  know  assuredly,  that 
God  hath  made  that  same  Jesus,  whom  ye  have  crucified,  both 
Lord  and  Christ.  [Peter  is  speaking  to  the  assembled  Jews 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost.]  Now  when  they  heard  this,  they 
were  pricked  in  their  heart  and  said  unto  Peter  and  to  the 
rest  of  the  apostles,  Men  and  brethren,  what  shall  we  do? 
Then  Peter  said  unto  them,  Repent,  and  be  baptized  every  one 
of  you  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ  for  the  remission  of  sins, 
and  ye  shall  receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  the 
promise  is  unto  you,  and  to  your  children,  and  to  all  that  are 
afar  off,  even  as  many  as  the  Lord  our  God  shall  call.  And 
with  many  other  words  did  he  testify  and  exhort,  saying, 
Save  yourselves  from  this  untoward  generation.  Then  they 
that  gladly  received  his  word  were  baptized." — Acts  2 :  36- 
41. 

When  we  preach  on  the  subject  of  baptism,  it  is  quite  pos- 
sible that  some  one  may  be  offended,  but  that  is  not  our  in- 
tention. We  respect  the  belief  and  the  feelings  of  other  peo- 
ple; but  it  is  obviously  true  that  when  we  speak  on  this 
subject  we  must  tell  the  people  what  we  believe.  You  would 
not  wish  us  to  do  otherwise. 

I  remember  hearing  a  very  noted  evangelist  in  a  series  of 
sermons.  He  started  the  first  sermon  by  saying,  "I  am  going 
to  preach  the  truth  here,  if  I  have  to  take  my  wife  home  in 
a  wheelbarrow."  A  little  later  when  he  came  to  the  subject 
of  baptism,  he  said,  "I  will  tell  you  that  you  must  all  be  bap- 
tized; but  I  will  not  tell  you  how  to  be  baptized,  because  if 
I  said  sprinkling,  I  would  offend  some,  and  if  I  said  immer- 
sion, I  would  offend  a  great  many  others/'  He  took  his  wife 
home  in  a  Pullman  car.  I  did  not  bring  my  wife  with  me. 
However,  I  will  te1!  what  I  believe  about  baptism,  and  take  a 
chance  on  Brother  R.  V.  Hopkins  taking  his  wife  home  in  a 
wheelbarrow.  I  am  quite  sure  he  would  take  her  that  way 
before  he  would  leave  her. 

Some  years  ago  I  had  occasion  to  visit  a  minister  who 


30  Zion  Builders'1  Sermons 

was  about  to  lecture  on  the  subject  of  "Mormonism."  In  the 
course  of  our  conversation  he  said,  "Brother  Smith,  do  you 
people  believe  the  Bible?  I  have  been  told  that  you  do  not." 
It  is  really  absurd  the  fool  stories  and  rumors  that  get  out 
about  Latter  Day  Saints.  Some  years  ago  in  a  distant  city 
where  we  lived,  my  son  was  telling  a  neighbor  that  I  had 
married  a  couple  that  day,  and  he  looked  at  him  with  specula- 
tive eye  and  said,  "Two  in  one  day!  How  many  does  that 
make  him?" 

One  of  our  apostles  was  baptizing  in  Australia.  He  noticed 
a  commotion  on  the  bank,  and  when  he  inquired  later  he  dis- 
covered that  a  man  was  very  busy  telling  the  people  that 
when  one  of  our  converts  was  baptized,  he  had  to  say  the 
name  of  Brigham  Young  three  times  while  under  the  water. 
If  one  of  our  converts  should  do  that  he  might  drown.  It  is 
about  all  we  can  do  to  say  the  name  of  Brigham  Young  out 
of  the  water,  without  strangling,  under  ordinary  conditions. 

Present-Tense  Religion 

So  this  minister  desired  to  know  if  we  really  believed  the 
Bible.  I  said  to  him,  "Well,  I  preach  every  Sunday  night  at 
our  church  near  here  and  I  always  take  my  text  from  the 
Bible."  Perhaps  I  should  have  stopped  there,  but  I  did  not. 
I  said,  "It  is  possible  that  we  adhere  more  closely  to  some 
portions  of  the  Bible  than  you  do."  And  he  replied,  "My 
brother,  that  cannot  be  possible!" 

"Well,  how  about  this:  'He  that  believeth  and  is  baptized 
shall  be  saved;  but  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned. 
And  these  signs  shall  follow  them  that  believe;  in  my  name 
shall  they  cast  out  devils;  they  shall  speak  with  new  tongues; 
they  shall  take  up  serpents;  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly 
thing,  it  shall  not  hurt  them;  they  shall  lay  their  hands  on 
the  sick,  and  they  shall  recover."'  (Mark  16:  15-20.) 

He  replied,  "I  will  say  this:  I  believe  that  the  signs  did 
follow." 

And  I  answered,  "That  is  exactly  the  difference  between  re- 
ligion in  the  past  tense  and  religion  in  the  present  tense." 

Whatever  you  may  say  about  Joseph  Smith,  it  is  true  that 
he  restored  the  present  tense  to  religious  terminology.  Every- 
one else  on  earth  was  saying  that  God  used  to  reveal  his  will 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  31 

to  men,  and  Joseph  Smith  stood  up  to  say,  God  does  reveal 
his  will  and  he  does  speak  to  man.  Everyone  else  was  saying 
that  God  used  to  heal  the  people,  that  he  used  to  bless  men, 
and  give  them  the  gift  of  prophecy;  but  Joseph  Smith  said 
God  does  heal  the  people  and  he  does  give  them  the  gifts  of 
the  gospel.  Everyone  else  was  saying  that  God  used  to  have 
a  church  on  earth  organized  with  apostles,  prophets,  evangel- 
ists, pastors,  elders,  bishops,' priests,  and  teachers;  but  Joseph 
Smith  stood  up  and  said  God  has  a  church  on  earth  with  apos- 
tles and  prophets  now. 

Joseph  Smith  was  like  the  prophets  of  old,  of  whom  Walter 
Rauschenbusch  says  in  his  book,  Christianity  and  the  Social 
Crisis,  "They  went  to  school  with  a  living  God  that  was  then 
at  work  in  his  world,  and  not  with  a  God  who  had  acted  long 
ago  and  put  it  down  in  a  book." 

I  like  the  present  tense  in  religion  because  I  happen  to  be 
living  to-day.  I  want  a  religion  that  applies  to-day  and  not 
one  that  speaks  only  of  the  long  dead  past. 

I  said  to  this  minister,  "Take  another  text.  How  about  the 
statement  of  Jesus  Christ  in  the  third  chapter  of  John:  'Ex- 
cept a  man  be  born  of  water,  and  the  Spirit,  he  cannot  enter 
into  the  kingdom  of  God.' " — John  3:  5. 

He  said,  "Well,  I  believe  very  strongly  in  the  baptism  of  the 
Spirit,  but  I  do  not  know  exactly  what  to  think  about  the  bap- 
tism of  water." 

'I  left  shortly  afterwards,  because  it  did  not  matter  what 
he  thought  about  it  or  what  I  thought  about  it.  The  question 
is,  What  does  God  think  about  it?  Jesus  Christ  is  not  like 
some  preachers.  He  did  not  talk  just  to  be  talking.  He 
meant  something  when  he  spoke  of  the  birth  of  water  and  of 
the  Spirit.  His  commandments  are  binding  to-day  just  as  of 
old.  In  that,  too,  we  believe  in  present-tense  religion. 

Let  the  Witnesses  Testify 

There  is  one  text  that  Latter  Day  Saints  very  frequently 
refer  to:  "To  the  law  and  to  the  testimony;  if  they  speak  not 
according  to  this  word,  it  is  because  there  is  no  light  in  them." 
—Isaiah  8:  20. 

And  another  statement:  "In  the  mouth  of  two  or  three  wit- 
nesses every  word  may  be  established." — Matthew  18: 16. 

Very  well;  let  us  summon  the  witnesses.    Let  us  see  what 


32  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

is  written  in  the  law.  Let  us  hear  the  testimony  of  the  wit- 
nesses. There  are  scores  of  them  who  testify  in  the  word  of 
God,  but  we  have  not  time  to  hear  all  of  them  to-night.  We 
will  hear  from  seven  of  them.  And  if  two  or  three  witnesses 
in  the  word  of  God,  and  in  the  civil  courts,  establish  a  fact, 
certainly  the  testimony  of  seven  unimpeachable,  witnesses 
ought  to  clarify  the  question  under  consideration. 

John  the  Baptist 

The  first  of  these  witnesses  that  we  shall  summon  is  John 
the  Baptist,  and  it  is  said  of  him  in  John  1:6:  "There  was  a 
man  sent  from  God,  whose  name  was  John."  He  should  be 
a  very  good  witness. 

And  John  tells  us :  "He  that  sent  me  to  baptize  with  water 
— " — John  1:33.  While  in  John  1:26,  he  adds,  "I  baptize 
with  water."  This  witness  which  cannot  be  impeached,  a 
man  sent  of  God,  says  that  God  sent  him  for  the  express  pur- 
pose that  he  should  baptize  with  water  and  that  Jesus  Christ 
should  follow  after  and  baptize  them  with  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Peter 

The  second  witness  that  we  introduce  is  Peter.  You  will  re- 
member that  when  Jesus  departed  he  told  the  disciples,  "Tarry 
ye  in  the  city  of  Jerusalem,  until  ye  be  endued  with  power 
from  on  high." — Luke  24:  29.  And  on  the  day  of  Pentecost, 
as  we  read  in  the  second  chapter  of  Acts,  this  divine  power 
rested  on  the  apostles,  and  Peter  stood  up  and  preached  to 
them.  So  we  have  as  witness  a  man  endowed  with  power 
from  on  high. 

And  Peter  said: 

"Repent,  and  be  baptized  every  one  of  you  in  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ,  for  the  remission  of  sins,  and  ye  shall  receive 
the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  the  promise  is  unto  you, 
and  to  your  children,  and  to  all  that  are  afar  off,  even  as 
many  as  the  Lord  our  God  shall  call." — Acts  2 :  38,  39. 

That  was  a  great  commandment  and  a  wonderful  promise 
that  reached  to  the  end  of  time.  As  many  as  the  Lord  shall 
call,  even  to-day,  are  commanded  to  be  baptized  and  are  prom- 
ised that  if  they  will  have  faith  and  repent  and  be  baptized 
that  they  shall  receive  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  33 

On  another  occasion  this  same  individual  was  preaching  to 
the  household  of  Cornelius.  You  remember  the  story.  The 
people  of  the  household  of  Cornelius  were  Gentses.  On  the 
day  of  Pentecost  Peter  was  talking  to  the  Jews,  but  the  gos- 
pel had  at  last  gone  to  the  Gentiles  and  they  received  it.  The 
Holy  Ghost  came  to  them  and  Peter  said,  "Can  any  man  for- 
bid water,  that  these  should  not  be  baptized  which  have  re- 
ceived the  Holy  Ghost,  as  well  as  we?  And  he  commanded 
them  to  be  baptized."— Acts  10:  47,  48. 

It  is  obvious  then  that  baptism  followed  with  the  gospel 
from  the  Jew  to  the  Gentile  and  comes  to  us  with  all  the 
other  teachings  of  our  Lord  and  Master. 

Paul 

The  third  witness  that  we  have  to  summon  to-night  is  the 
Apost'e  Paul.  You  will  remember  that  the  Lord  said  of  the 
Apostle  Paul,  "He  is  a  chosen  vessel  unto  me,  to  bear  my 
name  before  the  Gentiles,  and  kings,  and  the  children  of  Is- 
rael."—Acts  9:15.  ' 

This  is  especially  interesting  to  us  because  the  Apostle 
Paul  was  a  chosen  vessel  to  carry  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
to  the  Gentiles,  and  you  and  I  are  Gentiles  in  the  sense  of  the 
term  as  then  used.  That  is,  we  are  not  Jews.  The  Apostle 
Paul  was  a  chosen  vessel  to  bring  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
to  us,  and  so  he  should  certainly  be  a  satisfactory  witness 
for  us  to  hear. 

And  he  tells  us: 

"Therefore  leaving  the  principles  of  the  doctrine  of  Christ, 
let  us  go  on  unto  perfection"  [or  as  the  Inspired  Version  has 
it,  "therefore,  not  leaving  the  principles,"  which  obviously  is 
correct,  because  no  one  would  argue  that  we  should  leave 
either  faith  or  repentance.  Those  will  be  preached  as  long 
as  the  church  stands].  "Therefore,  not  leaving  the  principles 
of  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  let  us  go  on  unto  perfection;  not 
laying  again  the  foundation  of  repentance  from  dead  works, 
and  of  faith  toward  God,  of  the  doctrine  of  baptisms,  and  of 
laying  on  of  hands,  and  of  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  of 
eternal  judgment." — Hebrews  6:1,  2. 

He  has  baptism  in  the  plural.  That  includes  baptism  of 
water  and  of  the  Spirit.  As  Jesus  expressed  it:  "Except  a 


34  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

man  is  born  of  water  and  the  Spirit  he  cannot  enter  into  the 
kingdom  of  God." — John  3:  5. 

This  man  chosen  to  be  a  special  messenger  to  us,  epito- 
mizes the  principles  of  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ.  There 
are  six  of  them,  and  one  of  them  is  the  doctrine  of  baptism. 

And  you  will  remember  how  on  a  certain  occasion  Paul  and 
Silas  were  imprisoned  and  while  in  that  condition  the  earth- 
quake came  and  opened  the  door  of  the  prison  so  that  they 
were  loosed,  and  their  jailer  came  to  them  in  great  fear,  and 
while  he  was  in  that  condition  Paul  and  Silas  preached  to  him 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Let  us  read  a  few  words  from  this  chapter.  It  is  the  16th 
chapter  of  Acts,  beginning  with  the  30th  verse:  "And  [the 
jailer]  brought  them  out,  and  said,  Sirs,  what  must  I  do  to 
be  saved?" 

That  is  the  very  important  question  that  has  often  come 
to  the  lips  of  man.  "What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? " 

"And  they  said,  Believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
thou  shalt  be  saved,  and  thy  house." — Acts  16:  31. 

Right  there  is  where  a  great  many  people  stop.  They  do 
not  read  any  farther,  and  the  gist  of  their  message  is  that  all 
you  have  to  do  is  to  believe  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  and  sal- 
vation is  sure,  but  the  record  goes  on  to  say,  "And  they  spake 
unto  him  the  word  of  the  Lord,  and  to  all  that  were  in  his 
house.  And  he  took  them  the  same  hour  of  the  night,  and 
washed  their  stripes;  and  was  baptized,  he  and  all  his, 
straightway." — Verses  32,  33. 

Philip 

The  fourth  witness  is  Philip,  "a  preacher  of  Jesus  Christ." 
We  find  him  on  a  certain  occasion  taking  a  journey.  And  on 
the  way  he  came  to  the  eunuch,  who  was  traveling  in  a  char- 
iot, and  preached  to  him  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  rec- 
ord says: 

"Then  Philip  opened  his  mouth,  and  began  at  the  same 
scripture,  and  preached  unto  him  Jesus.  And  as  they  went 
on  their  way,  they  came  unto  a  certain  water:  and  the 
eunuch  said,  See,  here  is  water;  what  doth  hinder  me  to  be 
baptized?"— Acts  8:35,  36. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  35 

It  seemed  that  wherever  they  went  and  preached  Jesus,  the 
subject  of  baptism  came  up. 

"And  Philip  said,  If  thou  belicvest  with  all  thine  heart, 
thou  mayest.  And  he  answered  and  said,  I  believe  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  the  son  of  God." — Verse  37. 

Under  the  terms  of  modern  theology  that  was  all  he  needed 
to  do.  The  case  was  ended.  But  not  then — not  in  those  days: 

"And  he  commanded  the  chariot  to  stand  still;  and  they 
went  down,  both  into  the  water,  both  Philip  and  the  eunuch; 
and  he  baptized  him.  And  when  they  were  come  up  out  of  the 
water,  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord  caught  away  Philip." — Acts 
8:38,  39. 

You  will  note  in  passing  that  when  they  baptized  in  those 
days  they  went  down  into  the  water  and  baptized.  There  can 
be  no  question  as  to  the  mode  of  baptism. 

Ananias 

The  fifth  witness  is  Ananias  (not  the  Ananias  who  told  the 
lie) ;  this  is  the  Ananias  who  is  spoken  of  in  Acts  22:  12,  as  "a 
devout  man  according  to  the  law"  and  a  man  of  good  repute. 
That  is  the  kind  of  a  witness  we  want — a  devout  man  of 
good  repute  "according  to  the  law"  so  that  when  he  speaks 
we  may  know  that  he  speaks  according  to  the  law. 

You  remember  the  experience  of  Paul,  how  he  was  on  the 
way  to  Damascus  to  persecute  the  Saints,  and  on  the  way 
Jesus  Christ  appeared  to  him  and  he  was 'stricken  down  and 
blinded  so  that  they  had  to  lead  him  to  Damascus.  And  this 
devout  man,  according  to  the  law,  was  commanded  by  the 
Lord  to  go  to  the  house  of  Paul  and  tell  him  what  he  must 
do.  He  did  not  go  there  to  ask  Paul  what  he  wished  to  do, 
or  what  he  thought  about  it.  He  went  there  to  tell  him  what 
he  must  do.  For  Paul  had  been  told:  "Arise,  and  go  into 
the  city,  and  it  shall  be  told  thee  what  thou  must  do." — Acts 
9:6. 

Ananias  came  to  him  and  told  him  many  things  and  finally 
reached  a  point  where  he  said,  "And  now,  why  tarriest  thou  ? 
arise,  and  be  baptized,  and  wash  away  thy  sins,  calling  on 
the  name  of  the  Lord." — Acts  22: 16. 

That  is  what  Paul  had  to  do  to  obtain  salvation.  There 
was  no  choice  in  the  matter  if  he  would  please  God,  and  he 


36  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

had  reached  the  place  where  above  everything  on  earth  he 
wished  to  please  God. 

Paul  said  that  his  gospel  "came  not  in  word  only,  but  also 
in  power,  and  in  the  Ho]y  Ghost,  and  in  much  assurance"  (1 
Thessalonians  1:5),  and  he  did  not  hesitate  a  moment.  He 
did  not  raise  a  single  objection.  He  did  not  "tarry."  He 
yielded  obedience  to  baptism  and  became  one  of  the  great 
evangels  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Jesus  Christ 

The  sixth  witness,  and  we  speak  the  name  reverently,  is 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  The  commandment  in  divine  writ  is, 
"Hear  ye  him."  Thatjs  a  very  important  commandment,  and 
I  pause  right  here  to  remark  that  in  1820  when  Joseph  Smith 
received  his  first  vision  and  the  heavens  were  opened  and 
Jesus  was  pointed  out  to  him,  the  great  command  that  came 
to  him  was,  "This  is  my  Son,  hear  ye  him." 

No  matter  what  the  world  may  think  or  say,  that  is  the 
keynote  of  our  message  and  has  been  from  the  beginning  and 
will  always  continue  to  be  the  keynote.  What  does  Jesus 
have  to  say  about  baptism? 

The  first  glimpse  that  we  catch  of  Jesus  as  a  man  is  on  the 
banks  of  the  river  Jordan,  when  he  goes  down  into  the  water 
and  is  baptized  of  John.  And  he  says  unto  us,  "Take  up  thy 
cross  and  follow  me." 

And  the  very  last  glimpse  that  we  catch  of  him  here  on 
earth  is  when  he  is  talking  to  his  disciples  and  saying  to 
them,  "He  that  believeth  and  is  baptized,  sha1!  be  saved." — 
Mark  16:  16. 

That  is  a  definite  promise.  Some  one  else  may  make  you 
a  promise  on  some  other  terms.  I  do  not  care  for  their 
promises.  I  care  for  the  promise  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  he 
says,  "He  that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved." 
Again,  hear  ye  him:  "Go  ye  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations, 
baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son, 
and  of  the  Holy  Ghost;  teaching  them  to  observe  all  things, 
whatsoever  I  have  commanded  you:  and,  lo,  I  am  with  you 
alway,  even  unto  the  end  of  the  world." — Matthew  28: 19,  20. 

I  want  Jesus  Christ  with  me,  and  he  makes  it  conditional 
that  I  shall  teach  "all  things  that  he  has  commanded."  Most 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  37 

positively  one  of  the  things  he  commanded  us  to  teach  is  bap- 
tism: "Go  ye,  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations,  baptizing  them 
in  the  name  of  the  Father,  and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy 
Ghost." 

God 

Last  of  all,  and  we  speak  this  name  with  equal  reverence, 
the  seventh  witness  is  God.  When  Jesus  was  baptized,  God 
said,  "I  am  well  pleased." — Mark  1: 11. 

Do  you  wish  to  please  God?  It  is  written  we  ought  to 
please  God  rather  than  men.  It  is  not  a  question  of  pleasing 
your  father  or  your  mother,  not  when  it  comes  to  the  salva- 
tion of  your  soul  and  obedience  to  Christ.  It  is  not  a  question 
of  pleasing  your  brother  or  sister  or  your  friends  or  your 
companions.  It  is  a  question  of  pleasing  God,  and  it  is  a 
singular  fact  that  the  moment  of  all  moments  that  God  chose 
to  open  the  heavens  on  high  and  say,  "I  am  well  pleased," 
was  when  Jesus  Christ  was  coming  up  out  of  the  waters  of 
baptism. 

The  Mode  of  Baptism 

We  come  next  to  the  question  of  the  mode  of  baptism.  We 
have  established  from  seven  great  unimpeachable  witnesses 
that  baptism  is  essential,  that  it  is  one  of  the  gospel  princi- 
ples, and  that  it  is  commanded  of  God  and  pleasing  in  his 

sight. 

On  this  question  of  the  mode  of  baptism  the  Apostle  Paul 
tells  us  in  the  Roman  letter,  "Therefore,  we  are  buried  with 
him  by  baptism  into  death:  that  like  as  Christ  was  raised  up 
from  the  dead  by  the  glory  of  the  Father,  even  so  we  also 
should  walk  in  newness  of  life." — Romans  6:  4. 

This  language  is  not  capable  of  misconstruction.  If  you 
had  a  little  sand  sprinkled  on  your  coffin,  would  you  think 
that  you  were  buried?  Well,  you  would  not  think  anything 
about  it,  because  you  would  be  dead,  but  the  board  of  health 
would  say  that  you  were  not  buried. 

It  is  obviously  a  fact  that  the  historical  mode  of  baptism 
was  burial  in  water,  a  likeness  to  the  burial  of  Jesus  Christ, 
who  was  buried  in  the  earth;  so  in  the  likeness  of  his  burial 
we  are  buried  in  water  that  we  may  come  up  out  of  the 


38  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

water  new  creatures  as  Jesus  Christ  came  up  in  the  resur- 
rection to  a  new  and  glorious  life. 

Paul  continues,  "For  if  we  have  been  planted  together  in 
the  likeness  of  his  death,  we  shall  be  also  in  the  likenesss  of 
his  resurrection." — Verse  5.  He  uses  another  simile  that  can- 
not be  misunderstood.  You  do  not  plant  seeds  on  the  top  of 
the  ground;  you  cover  them  up.  You  bury  them.  And  then 
they  come  up  to  a  new  life,  just  as  the  candidate  is  buried  in 
water  and  comes  up  a  new  creature,  if  he  has  made  a  true 
covenant.  This  is  repeated  in  more  than  one  place.  In  Colos- 
sians  2: 12:  "Buried  with  him  in  baptism,  wherein  also  ye  are 
risen  with  him  through  the  faith  of  the  operation  of  God,  who 
hath  raised  him  from  the  dead." 

That  idea  of  burial  may  account  for  the  statement:  "John 
was  baptizing  in  ^Enon,  near  to  Salim,  because  there  was 
much  water  there." — John  3:  23.  It  does  not  take  very  much 
water  to  baptize  in  some  ways,  but  if  you  are  to  bury  a  man 
in  water  in  the  likeness  of  the  burial  of  Jesus  Christ  enough 
water  is  needed  to  cover  the  body,  so  when  they  baptized  an- 
ciently, they  searched  about  until  they  found  "much  water," 
and  there  they  administered  the  ordinance. 

This  was  the  baptism  of  John.  He  "was  baptizing  in  ^Enon, 
near  to  Salim,  because  there  was  much  water."  You  remem- 
ber the  question  that  Jesus  asked  the  Jews  ?  The  baptism  of 
John,  "Was  it  from  heaven  or  was  it  from  men?"  (Luke 
20:  4.)  And  they  did  not  dare  to  answer  him.  They  did  not 
dare  to  say  it  was  of  men,  because  they  were  afraid  of  the 
people,  and  they  did  not  dare  to  say  it  was  of  God,  because 
then  he  would  ask  them,  "Why  were  ye  not  baptized?" 

Christians  should  not  fear  to  answer  the  question:  The 
baptism  of  John,  who  baptized  where  there  was  much  water, 
was  it  of  heaven?  Well,  the  Bible  says,  there  was  a  man 
sent  of  God  whose  name  was  John,  and  he  came  doing  the 
will  of  God. 

We  have  selected  these  examples  because  they  show  very 
clearly  the  mode  of  operation  in  days  gone  by  in  the  primi- 
tive Christian  church.  We  have  already  mentioned  the  bap- 
tism of  the  eunuch  under  the  administration  of  Philip,  how 
they  went  down  into  the  water  both  Philip  and  the  eunuch 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  39 

and  when  Philip  had  baptized  him  they  came  up  out  of  the 
water. 

There  is  no  question  about  the  method  of  that  baptism.  The 
very  origin  of  the  word  baptism,  baptizo  in  the  Greek,  means 
to  plunge,  to  overwhelm,  to  cover  up,  and  there  is  no  question 
either  that  the  historical  method  of  baptism  was  by  immer- 
sion. 

In  support  of  that  we  will  perhaps  pause  to  read  some  ex- 
tracts from  history.  Mosheim  who  was  recognized  as  a  learned 
and  accurate  historian,  in  writing  of  the  first  century,  says, 
"Baptism  was  administered  in  this  (first)  century,  without 
the  public  assemblies,  in  places  appointed  and  prepared  for 
that  purpose,  and  was  performed  by  an  immersion  of  the  whole 
body  in  the  baptismal  font." 

Eusebius,  known  as  the  father  of  church  historians,  re- 
counts what,  so  far  as  I  know,  was  the  first  case  of  any  other 
form  of  ceremonial  known  as  baptism,  the  case  of  Novatus 
about  the  year  263,  of  whom  he  says,  "when  attacked  with  an 
obstinate  disease  and  being  supposed  at  the  point  of  death, 
was  baptized  by  aspersion,  in  the  bed  on  which  he  lay;  if,  in- 
deed, it  be  proper  to  say  that  one  like  him  did  receive  bap- 
tism. But  neither  when  he  recovered  from  disease,  did  he 
partake  of  other  things,  which  the  rules  of  the  church  pre- 
scribed as  duty,  nor  was  he  sealed,  (in  confirmation)  by  the 
Bishop.  But  as  he  did  not  obtain  this  how  could  he  obtain 
the  Holy  Spirit?" 

This  man  was  supposed  to  be  at  the  point  of  death,  and  he 
was  baptized  by  sprinkling,  but  when  he  recovered  he  was 
not  admitted  to  church  privileges.  The  monks  of  Cressy,  A.  D. 
754,  inquired:  "Is  it  lawful,  in  case  of  necessity,  occasioned  by 
sickness,  to  baptize  an  infant  by  pouring  water  on  its  head, 
from  a  cup,  or  the  hands?"  To  which  Pope  Stephen  III  re- 
plied: "Such  a  baptism  performed  in  such  a  case  of  necessity, 
shall  be  accounted  valid."  This  was  in  the  eighth  century. 

However,  it  was  not  until  the  year  1311  that  the  council  at 
Ravenna  declared  immersion  and  pouring  indifferent. 

We  have  then  briefly  presented  before  us  this  consideration, 
that  for  at  least  one  or  two  hundred  years  after  Jesus  Christ, 
immersion  was  practically  the  only  form  of  baptism  that  was 
known  or  that  was  resorted  to,  but  finally  there  came  a  time 


40  Zion  Bialders'  Sermons 

when  one  and  then  several  were  baptized  in  other  ways  be- 
cause of  their  illness;  but  it  was  not  until  1300  years  after 
Christ  that  such  baptism  was  declared  legal,  and  then  who 
was  it  that  said  it  was  legal  ?  A  Roman  Catholic  council  and 
a  Roman  Catholic  pope. 

If  we  are  to  concede  that  in  the  dark  ages  of  apostasy  of 
the  world's  history  the  Catholic  Church  represented  God  and 
had  the  right  to  change  his  ordinances,  why,  then,  let  us  all 
be  Catholics;  but  if  we  will  not  concede  that,  and  all  Protes- 
tantism rises  up  in  protest  against  it,  then  let  us  go  back  of 
the  council  of  Ravenna  to  the  testimony  of  Paul  who  says 
that  we  ought  to  be  buried  with  Christ  in  baptism. 

I  heard  a  discussion  between  one  of  our  men  and  a  very 
prominent  priest.  It  was  very  significant.  Our  elder  quoted 
to  him  the  statement  in  Isaiah:  "They  have  transgressed  the 
laws,  changed  the  ordinance,  broken  the  everlasting  covenant," 
and  he  charged  the  Catholic  Church  with  changing  the  ordi- 
nance of  baptism.  The  priest  merely  answered,  in  substance, 
"Why,  of  course  we  changed  the  ordinance  of  baptism.  We 
had  a  right  to.  We  know  very  well  that  originally  immersion 
was  the  form." 

What  are  you  going  to  do  about  it?  If  Protestants  do  not 
concede  papal  authority,  why  do  so  many  Protestants  wink  at 
the  changes  made? 

The  Question  Box,  a  book  by  Reverend  Bertrand  L.  Conway, 
of  the  Paulist  Fathers,  is  published  by  the  Paulist  Press  of 
the  Catholic  Church  and  has  a  preface  by  Cardinal  Gibbons. 
It  says:  "The  Catholic  Church,  therefore,  as  the  infallible  in- 
terpreter of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  declares  that  all  three 
ways  of  baptizing  are  equally  valid,  by  immersion,  by  pour- 
ing, or  by  sprinkling.  The  present  mode  of  pouring  arose 
from  the  many  inconveniences  connected  with  immersion,  fre- 
quent mention  of  which  is  made  in  the  writings  of  the  early 
church  fathers." 

It  seems  to  me  very  clear  that  the  ancient  historical  method 
of  baptism  was  by  immersion.  In  the  light  of  that  and  the 
further  fact  that  the  Scriptures  tell  us  specifically  that  when 
Jesus  was  baptized  he  "came  up  out  of  the  water,"  there  can 
be  no  shadow  of  doubt  that  he  was  immersed.  He  went  down 
into  the  River  Jordan  and  was  plunged  under  its  rolling  waves 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  41 

and  came  up  out  of  the  water.  Is  the  servant  greater  than 
the  Master?  If  Jesus  Christ  did  that,  shall  I  stand  on  the 
bank  and  quibble? 

Where  is  the  occasion  for  any  quibbling  or  for  any  ques- 
tion ?  The  facts  of  the  matter  are  as  it  is  stated,  "They  that 
gladly  received  his  word  were  baptized." — Acts  2:41.  If  a 
man  receives  it  gladly  there  is  no  question. 

The  baptism  of  Jesus  is  good  enough  for  me.  If  I  were  to 
come  to  you,  to-night  and  offer  you  your  choice  of  a  dozen 
$100  bank  notes,  saying,  "One  out  of  the  dozen  is  absolutely 
genuine,  it  will  be  taken  at  any  bank  in  the  world,  no  one 
questions  it;  but  the  others,  some  say,  are  genuine,  some  say 
not;  some  banks  may  cash  them  and  some  may  not;  take  your 
choice,"  which  would  you  take  ?  There  is  not  a  man  here  that 
would  hesitate  for  a  moment.  Why  don't  men  use  the  same 
logic  in  religion.  There  is  no  question  that  immersion  is  gen- 
uine baptism  and  that  it  brings  with  it  all  the  blessings  that 
are  promised.  Then  why  should  we  hesitate  ?  Why  not  arise 
as  they  did  of  old,  who  heard  the  word  and  were  gladly  bap- 
tized? 

The  Meaning  of  Baptism 

Last  of  all,  we  may  consider  baptism  in  its  meaning.  It  is 
symbolical.  From  time  immemorial  man  has  expressed  him- 
self in  symbols.  You  can  think,  if  you  take  time,  of  hun- 
dreds of  symbols  that  man  habitually  uses — the  flags  of  na- 
tions, the  key  to  the  city,  the  seal  of  state,  the  wedding  ring, 
prostration  in  prayer  or  in  obeisance.  There  are  literally  thou- 
sands of  symbols.  Some  oAhem  are  material,  like  the  flag. 
When  we  see  the  Starry  Banner,  we  think  of  America.  When 
we  see  the  Union  Jack  we  think  of  Great  Britain.  Some  of 
them  are  ceremonial,  as  the  sign  of  the  cross  that  some  peo- 
ple use,  or  prostration  in  prayer,  or  in  reverence  before  a  king. 
Man  habitually  expresses  himself  in  symbols.  He  sees  them 
objectively  and  they  help  him  to  visualize  the  conception  that 
is  in  his  mind,  or  that  somebody  else  wishes  to  put  into  his 
mind. 

Our  heavenly  Father  speaks  to  men  in  a  language  that  they 
can  understand.  He  speaks  to  man  many  times  in  symbols. 
Baptism  is  a  symbol,  and  when  the  Lord  chose  a  symbol  that 
would  stand  to  man  for  cleansing,  he  chose  baptism  in  water. 


42  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

Anyone  can  understand  that.  Man  has  always  cleansed  his 
body  in  water,  and  so  we  can  understand  the  symbolism  of 
washing  away  the  sins  of  the  spirit  in  water.  Of  course,  we 
know  that  the  water  does  not  actually  touch  the  spirit  and 
wash  the  sins  away,  but  it  is  symbolical  of  the  cleansing  proc- 
ess that  goes  on,  and  for  that  reason  Ananias  said  to  Paul, 
"Why  tarriest  thou?  Arise  and  be  baptized,  and  wash  away 
thy  sins." — Acts  22: 16.  When  the  Lord  wanted  to  choose  an 
ordinance  that  would  stand  for  washing  and  cleansing  and  for 
spiritual  regeneration  he  chose  washing  in  water.  He  chose  a 
symbol  that  is  full  of  significance  and  great  beauty,  but 
change  ruins  it. 

Baptism  a  Beginning 

Finally  we  come  to  consider  baptism  as  a  beginning.  It 
is  in  a  sense  the  door  of  the  kingdom.  Jesus  Christ  himself 
said,  "Except  a  man  be  born  of  the  water,  and  the  Spirit,  he 
cannot  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  God." — John  3:5.  He  made 
the  door  of  the  kingdom  to  be  through  baptism  of  water  and 
of  the  Spirit,  or  the  birth  of  the  water  and  of  the  Spirit. 

You  know  that  Paul  tells  us  in  the  fourth  chapter  of  the 
Ephesian  letter,  there  is  one  Lord,  one  faith,  and  one  baptism 
(Ephesians  4:  5);  but  baptism  is  dual.  As  there  is  only  one 
man  composed  of  body  and  spirit,  so  there  is  one  baptism 
which  includes  the  baptism  of  the  water  and  of  the  Spirit. 
Jesus  said  so.  He  says  in  another  verse,  "Except  a  man  is 
born  again,  he  cannot  see  the  kingom  of  God." — John  3 :  3. 
That  is  one  reason  why  I  think  it?  is  so  necessary  our  people 
should  be  taught  the  fundamentals.  I  know  that  some  think, 
"Why  should  we  not  go  on  and  confine  ourselves  to  the  con- 
sideration of  the  great  Zionic  principles?"  But  let  me  tell 
you,  friends,  before  we  have  a  people  ready  to  enter  into  Zion, 
we  must  have  a  people  who  have  been  born  of  the  water  and 
of  the  Spirit.  They  have  to  go  through  this  fundamental  edu- 
cation in  the  primary  principles  of  the  doctine  of  Jesus  Christ 
before  they  can  even  "see  the  kingdom,"  as  Jesus  Christ  in- 
timated in  his  language,  or  see  Zion,  as  we  might  say. 

Baptism  is  the  beginning  of  a  new,  clean  life  in  Christ 
Jesus.  As  the  Apostfe  Paul  says,  "If  we  are  buried  with 
Christ  in  baptism,  so  shall  we  arise  in  newness  of  life." 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  43 

That  is  the  beautiful  thing  about  it.  It  gives  every  man  a 
chance  to  start  a  new  life.  How  many  times  do  you  hear 
men  say,  "I  wish  I  could  have  another  start.  I  think  I  could 
do  better.  My  life  is  filled  with  mistakes.  I  wish  I  had  an- 
other chance"? 

The  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  comes  to  every  man  and  says, 
"God  will  give  you  another  chance.  You  may  wash  away 
your  sins  and  start  all  over,  and  if  you  think  you  have  learned 
any  lesson,  profit  by  it.  In  addition  to  that  you  may  have  the 
Spirit  of  God  to  guide  you  and  keep  you  through  life." 

So  in  conclusion,  we  may  say,  if  there  are  those  here  who 
have  already  been  baptized,  then  it  remains  only  for  them  to 
continue  in  this  new  life  and  see  to  it  that  they  do  not  crucify 
again  the  Lord  afresh. 

But  if  there  are  those  who  have  not  been  baptized,  in  the 
language  of  the  Bible,  we  say  unto  them,  "Why  tarriest  thou  ? 
arise  and  be  baptized  and  wash  away  thy  sins,  calling  on  the 
<aame  of  the  Lord." 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  45 

Laying  on  of  Hands 

Sermcn  by  Elbert  A.  Smith  at  Lamoni, 
during  the  Zion  Builder  Series.  Reported 
by  Winsome  Smith  McDonald. 

"Whosoever  transgresseth,  and  abideth  not  in  the  doctrine 
of  Christ,  hath  not  God.  He  that  abideth  in  the  doctrine  of 
Christ,  he  hath  both  the  Father  and  the  Son.  If  there 
come  any  unto  you,  and  bring  not  this  doctrine,  receive  him 
not  into  your  house,  neither  bid  him  Godspeed." — 2  John 
1,  10. 

Jesus  answered  them,  and  said,  My  doctrine  is  not  mine, 
but  his  that  sent  me.  If  any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine,  whether  it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I 
speak  of  myself." — John  7 :  16,  17. 

That  wonderful  promise  is  still  in  force.  If  any  man  will 
put-  God  to  the  test  and  do  his  will  he  may  know  of  the  doc- 
trine. 

Did  Jesus  Have  a  Doctrinal  Message? 

You  have  noticed  of  course  that  the  sermons  of  this  series 
thus  far  have  been  doctrinal.  We  might  ask  ourselves,  Did 
Jesus  Christ  come  with  a  doctrinal  message?  If  he  did  not, 
then  we  are  not  justified  in  preaching  doctrine.  But  Jesus 
said,  "My  doctrine  is  not  mine,  but  his  that  sent  me." 

He  came  then  with  a  certain  form  of  doctrine,  and  he  re- 
ceived it  from  God  the  Father.  There  is,  it  is  true,  a  preju- 
dice in  the  world  against  the  preaching  of  doctrine,  and  we 
have  been  told  that  people  will  not  endure  doctrinal  preaching 
— especially  the  young  generation  were  not  interested  in  it. 
It  seems  to  me  there  could  hardly  be  a  man  so  dense  that 
he  could  look  over  this  audience  without  the  idea  percolating 
into  his  mind  some  way  that  young  people  are  interested  in 
doctrine.  For  seven  consecutive  nights  in  Independence,  from 
thirteen  to  fourteen  hundred  young  people  sat  and  listened 
intently  to  doctrinal  sermons,  and  at  the  very  same  time  one 
of  the  prominent  churches  in  town  that  does  not  believe  in 
doctrinal  sermons  put  on  a  revival  for  their  young  people, 
and  a  bishop  who  attended  said  he  could  count  the  young  peo- 
ple present  on  the  fingers  of  Lis  two  hands.  Another  minis- 


46  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

ter  put  on  a  lecture  against  Mormonism  and  there  were  eight 
of  his  people  there  and  twelve  of  ours  to  hear  it.  He  said 
he  had  preached  for  nine  years  in  Independence  and  had  de- 
cided that  Independence  is  spiritually  dead.  Well,  his  end  of 
it  may  be,  let  him  say — but  ours  certainly  is  not. 

Two  ministers  were  overheard  talking  on  a  street  car  after 
the  close  of  our  revival,  and  one  of  them  said,  "I  have  been 
attending  the  meetings  held  at  the  Stone  Church  by  the  Lat- 
ter Day  Saints  and  I  will  tell  you  that  we  have  got  to  wake 
up.  Those  people  have  a  power  with  them  and  they  are  hold- 
ing their  young  people." 

It  is  a  good  thing  to  wake  up,  but  it  is  a  good  thing  also 
to  have  something  to  wake  up  to.  Of  course  there  is  a  power 
with  the  church.  Where,  outside  this  church,  would  you  young 
people  go  to  experience  that  which  you  experienced  at  the 
morning  prayer  meeting  last  Sunday?  And  I  thought  in  the 
course  of  just  such  a  similar  prayer  meeting  in  Independence 
when  I  saw  young  men  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  old  stand 
up  and  speak  in  prophecy — not  some  wild  harangue,  but  an 
intelligent  and  powerful  declaration  of  the  will  of  God — I 
thought,  I  am  glad  I  am  united  with  a  church  that  can  say, 
"Our  gospel  came  not  unto  us  in  word  only,  but  in  power  and 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  much  assurance."  (1  Thessalo- 
nians  1:5.)  I  am  glad  of  that,  because  I  cannot  tell  you  peo- 
ple that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God  so  that  you  will  know 
it.  I  can  tell  you,  but  you  will  not  know  it  for  yourselves; 
but  I  am  glad  I  represent  a  church  with  which  God  is  work- 
ing and  which  believes  in  the  spirit  of  revelation,  so  that 
though  I  may  be  a  thousand  miles  from  you  and  you  alone 
somewhere  the  Spirit  may  speak  to  you  and  say,  "Jesus  Christ 
is  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Savior  of  the  world."  We  are  told 
that  the  testimony  of  Jesus  is  the  spirit  of  prophecy. 

The  pulpits  are  offering  substitutes  for  doctrine,  little  ex- 
egeses of  sociology  and  ethics  and  morals  and  politics  and 
Shakespeare  and  whatnot.  There  is  a  penalty  attached  to 
that,  and  the  penalty  is  stated  in  2  John  9,  "Whosoever  trans- 
gresseth,  and  abideth  not  in  the  doctrine  of  Christ,  hath  not 
God."  The  result  is  empty  and  impotent  churches.  That  is 
our  explanation  for  the  fact  that  ours  is  a  doctrinal  message. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  47 

Importance  of  Laying  on  of  Hands 

The  doctrine  that  we  have  for  consideration  to-night,  that 
of  the  laying  on  of  hands,  may  not  seem  to  you  at  first  glance 
to  be  of  any  great  importance.  In  fact,  some  people  seem 
to  consider  it  as  being  the  least  important  of  the  doctrines 
that  we  preach,  and  the  least  interesting  among  them,  but  it 
seems  to  me  that  it  is  exceedingly  important.  First,  because 
it  is  a  part  of  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ.  As  stated  in 
those  passages  which  I  have  already  referred  to  where  Paul 
enumerated  the  principles  of  the  doctrines  of  Jesus  Christ 
(Hebrews  6:1,  2),  he  names  the  laying  on  of  hands  as  the 
fourth  of  those  doctrines,  and  you  will  remember  that  Christ 
said,  "My  doctrine  is  not  mine  but  his  that  sent  me,"  and 
that  whosoever  "abideth  in  the  doctrine  of  Christ  hath  both 
the  Father  and  the  Son." 

This  doctrine  seems  to  me  to  be  exceedingly  important,  first 
because  of  its  origin.  It  is  very  ancient  so  far  as  practice  is 
concerned.  Away  back  in  the  days  of  Moses  he  blessed  and 
ordained  Joshua  by  the  laying  on  of  hands  (Numbers  27:  18- 
20),  and  he  did  this  under  direct  commandment  of  God  the 
Father.  For  some  reason  God  chose  to  carry  this  ceremony 
on  down  and  made  it  a  part  of  the  doctrine  of  Jesus  Christ 
and  a  part  of  the  practice  of  his  church. 

It  is  important  in  the  next  place  because  of  its  significance. 
We  talked  to  you  last  night  a  little  about  symbolism.  Hu- 
manity has  always  expressed  itself  in  symbols  so  that  man 
might  see  something  objectively  that  would  help  to  interpret 
the  conception  in  the  human  mind.  The  human  being  is  the 
only  earthly  creature  that  can  form  a  conception  of  an  ab- 
stract idea;  and  even  man  himself  sometimes  finds  it  difficult 
to  do  so.  Objective  presentations  help.  That  is  why  pictures 
help  so  very  much  in  the  understanding  of  any  kind  of  lec- 
ture or  treatise,  or  even  story.  I  mentioned  some  of  these 
symbols,  such  as  the  flags  of  nations,  the  seal  of  state,  the 
key  of  the  city.  Even  to-day  we  give  a  distinguished  visitor 
the  key  to  the  city — sometimes  handing  him  an  actual  key, 
though  there  is  no  longer  any  wall  around  the  city  and  no 
gate  for  him  to  unlock  that  he  may  come  in  and  go  out;  but 
there  was  a  time  when  it  was  an  evidence  of  very  great  trust 


48  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

to  give  any  man  the  key  to  the  city.  So  to-day  we  symbolize 
our  confidence  in  our  honored  guests.  The  wedding  ring  is  a 
symbol  that  the  wife  may  look  at  and  remember  the  covenant 
she  has  made,  and  picture  her  husband  though  he  be  far  away. 
Do  you  not  suppose  that  our  missionaries'  wives,  as  they  sit 
in  the  evening  and  look  at  the  wedding  ring  on  the  finger, 
picture  most  vividly  the  companion  perhaps  on  the  other  side 
of  the  world- in  mission  fields? 

We  have  ceremonial  symbols  also.  In  days  gone  by  when 
rnen  dressed  themselves  in  armor  and  wore  helmets  on  their 
heads,  when  they  came  into  the  presence  of  ladies  or  into  church 
or  among  friends,  they  uncovered  their  heads  as  a  token  that 
there  was  no  danger  of  blows  in  that  society.  So  to-day  we 
take  off  our  hats  under  similar  conditions,  a  sort  of  ceremo- 
nial symbol.  Prostration  in  prayer  is  symbolical  of  humility. 

God  speaks  to  man  in  language  that  he  can  easily  under- 
stand. The  human  hand  is  a  natural  symbol  of  power.  By  it 
man  wields  the  sword,  guides  the  pen,  steadies  the  plow, 
drives  the  engine.  It  is  absolute^  the  only  thing  in  common 
use  by  which  he  applies  the  will  and  power  of  his  spirit  to 
material  things,  and  everything  on  earth  that  is  shaped  by 
man  to  conform  to  the  conception  in  his  mind  is  shaped  by  his 
hand,  so  that  it  naturally  becomes  a  symbol  of  power.  And 
even  it  is  a  symbol  of  God's  power,  because  we  read  in  lan- 
guage which  to  be  sure  is  figurative: 

"God  came  from  Teman,  and  the  Holy  One  from  Mount 
Paran.  Selah.  His  glory  covered  the  heavens,  and  the  earth 
was  full  of  his  praise.  And  his  brightness  was  as  the  light; 
he  had  horns  coming  out  of  his  hand;  and  there  was  the 
hiding  of  his  power." — Habakkuk  3:3,  4. 

And  so  for  good  reasons  God  chose  to  make  the  laying  on  of 
hands  the  symbol  of  power  and  authority  in  his  church,  in 
many  of  the  ceremonies  and  ordinances  that  are  connected 
with  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

This  doctrine  is  very  important  because  of  its  association; 
it  has  always  been  intimately  associated  with  the  act  of  bless- 
ing, also  with  the  act  of  healing  and  with  the  act  of  ordina- 
tion. So  we  may  say  that  because  of  its  origin,  its  signifi- 
cance, and  its  association  it  is  exceedingly  important  among 
the  doctrines  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  49 

In  Blessing  Children 

Now  we  consider  in  their  order  some  of  the  ways  in  which 
this  ceremony  was  used  in  olden  times.  First  in  the  blessing 
of  children.  We  may  say  in  passing  that  according  to  the 
belief  of  this  church  the  custom  of  baptizing  little  children  is 
both  unscriptural  and  unreasonable.  I  refer  now  to  little 
children  who  are  not  old  enough  to  understand  or  believe. 
Baptism  is  intended  for  those  who  believe:  "He  that  believeth 
and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved." — Mark  16: 16.  Baptism  is 
also  for  the  remission  of  sins:  "Why  tarriest  thou?  arise  and 
be  baptized  and  wash  away  thy  sins." — Acts  22:  16.  Little 
children  have  not  sinned,  neither  can  they  believe  or  under- 
stand the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ;  but  Jesus  himself  says,  "Of 
such  is  the  kingdom  of  God." — Luke  18: 16. 

You  might  as  well  attempt  to  gild  the  rose,  or  paint  the 
lily,  or  powder  the  snowflake,  or  burnish  a  sunbeam  as  to  think 
of  baptizing  a  little  child  to  make  him  more  pure. 

Some  one  may  say,  "Jesus  Christ  was  baptized  and  he  had 
never  committed  any  sin";  but  baptism  is  also  for  those  who 
believe,  and  Jesus  Christ  believed  and  always  did  believe. 
Even  at  twelve  years  of  age  he  was  found  expounding  the 
law  that  he  believed.  He  kept  the  law  that  he  believed,  and 
was  baptized  as  an  example  to  all  his  followers,  upon  whom 
he  made  it  obligatory  to  follow  in  his  footsteps. 

But  when  it  came  to  little  children,  the  record  says,  "He 
took  them  up  in  his  arms,  put  his  hands  upon  them,  and 
blessed  them." — Mark  10: 18.  About  the  same  statement  is 
found  in  Matthew  19:  15  where  it  says  he  "laid  his  hands  on 
them,  and  departed  thence." 

So  it  is  a  scriptural  custom  in  this  church  that  little  chil- 
dren are  received  at  the  altar,  and  in  harmony  with  the  pat- 
tern Christ  gave,  the  eMers  place  their  hands  on  them  and 
bless  them.  It  is  certainly  a  comfort  and  an  incentive  to  the 
parents,  and  a  blessing  to  the  children. 

In  Ordination 

Next  we  may  consider  the  question  of  the  laying  on  of 
hands  in  the  case  of  ordination.  We  have  already  mentioned 
the  ordination  of  Joshua,  and  the  ceremony  certainly  became 


50  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

a  very  universal  custom  in  the  New  Testament  church.  For 
instance  in  the  ordination  of  Barnabas  (Acts  13:  2,  3): 

"As  they  ministered  to  the  Lord,  and  fasted,  the  Holy 
Ghost  said,  Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul  for  the  work 
whereunto  I  have  called  them.  And  when  they  had  fasted 
and  prayed,  and  laid  their  hands  on  them,  they  sent  them 
away." 

Also  in  Acts  6  there  is  a  record  of  the  ordination  of  Stephen 
and  Philip  and  five  others:  "Whom  they  set  before  the  apos- 
tles: and  when  they  had  prayed,  they  laid  their  hands  on 
them."— Verse  6. 

This  will  suffice  to  show  the  ancient  custom,  and  it  is  enough 
to  say  that  in  most  of  the  churches  to-day  ordination  takes 
place  with  the  laying  on  of  hands.  We  wonder  why  they  do 
not  observe  the  ceremony  in  other  ways  that  are  indicated  in 
the  word  of  God.  For  instance — 

In  the  Healing  of  the  Sick 

We  said  last  night  that  we  believed  in  religion  in  the  pres- 
ent tense.  We  are  told  by  a  great  many  people  that  God  no 
longer  heals  the  sick,  that  the  day  of  miracles  is  past,  and  we 
cannot  expect  these  things  any  longer;  but  as  a  church  we 
have  never  drawn  a  line  anywhere  in  the  calendar  of  time 
and  dared  to  say  that  on  the  other  side  of  that  line  God  re- 
vealed himself  and  blessed  the  people,  but  on  this  side  he  does 
nothing  of  the  kind. 

We  are  told,  it  is  true,  that  people  are  becoming  so  much 
better  and  Christianity  has  progressed  to  the  point  where  it 
does  not  need  the  things  they  had  of  old.  That  argues  an 
entire  reversal  in  God's  administration,  and  he  says,  "I  am 
the  Lord,  I  change  not." — Malachi  3:  6.  Anciently  the  nearer 
the  people  got  to  their  heavenly  Father  the  more  communion 
there  was,  the  more  revelation,  the  more  blessing,  the  more 
power,  the  more  demonstration,  while  now  we  are  told  that 
the  nearer  we  get  to  him  the  farther  away  he  is,  and  the  less 
we  hear  of  him,  the  more  silent  he  is,  and  the  less  he  gives. 

I  am  reminded  of  the  old  story  of  a  traveler  who  came  to 
an  inn  and  put  up  for  the  night.  He  got  his  lodging  but  he 
fell  ill  and  could  not  eat  his  supper  or  his  breakfast.  When 
the  morning  came  the  landlord  wanted  to  charge  for  both 
supper  and  breakfast  as  well  as  the  lodging.  The  traveler 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  51 

was  willing  to  pay  for  his  lodging  but  not  for  the  meals  he 
had  not  eaten,  and  so  they  fell  into  a  violent  quarrel;  but 
finally  they  agreed  to  leave  the  matter  to  the  first  comer  to 
decide.  So  they  told  the  first  man  who  came  all  about  it,  and 
he  said  to  the  traveler,  "Give  me  two  pieces  of  silver."  The 
traveler  did  so,  and  the  man  then  took  them  and  shook  them 
by  the  ear  of  the  innkeeper  and  said,  "Do  you  hear  that?" 
The  innkeeper  said,  "Yes,  I  hear  it.  What  of  it?"  And  the 
man  then  said,  "Well,  all  the  traveler  got  was  the  smell  of 
your  meat,  and  all  you  get  is  the  jingle  of  his  money." 

Now  if  it  indeed  be  true  that  all  we  get  is  the  smell  of  the 
meat  that  Peter  ate  and  the  shadow  of  Paul's  loaf,  then  all 
God  can  reasonably  ask  of  us  is  the  jingle  of  our  money  in 
the  way  of  service;  but  the  trouble  is  that  is  about  all  the 
world  is  giving  him  so  men  do  not  get  the  blessings  they 
used  to  have. 

I  read  in  John  Wesley's  journal  that  on  one  occasion  when 
he  was  traveling  a  circuit  in  the  woods'  alone  his  horse  be- 
came very  ill,  and  he  says  he  dismounted  and  prayed  over  the 
horse;  the  horse  was  immediately  healed,  and  he  got  up  and 
continued  on  his  journey.  And  yet  men  tell  us  to-day  that 
God  won't  do  for  us  what  he  did  for  John  Wesley's  horse ! 

I  want  to  give  you  just  a  little  chapter  from  my  own  expe- 
rience. When  I  was  a  boy  there  was  a  misfortune  came  upon 
me  that  never  can  be  atoned  for  in  this  life;  namely,  I  did 
not  have  the  experience  of  a  father's  companionship  and  guid- 
ing hand  after  I  was  five  years  old;  but  my  mother's  brother, 
whose  name  was  Hartshorn,  sojourned  with  us  for  some  years, 
and  in  some  ways  he  took  the  place  of  a  father  to  me.  I 
loved  him  very  dearly  and  do  yet.  About  that  time  there 
came  into  the  neighborhood  a  young  woman  to  teach  the 
country  school  (my  uncle  was  then  a  young  man)  and  I  was 
one  of  the  four  or  five  scholars  who  made  up  the  student  body 
of  that  school.  She  had  not  been  there  long  before  I  noticed 
a  most  astonishing  change  come  over  my  uncle.  It  was  a 
phenomenon  that  I  had  never  before  observed.  I  did  not  know 
what  to  make  of  it.  It  seemed  as  though  some  one  had  turned 
a  switch  and  lighted  up  an  electric  light  inside  of  him.  He 
just  radiated  light.  You  boys  who  have  had  the  switch  turned 
on  know  how  it  is.  You  know  what  this  illumination  means. 


52  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

Finally,  I  discovered  the  secret.  My  uncle  was  in  love;  and 
very  soon  he  and  the  young  school-teacher  were  married  and 
established  a  very  happy  home.  Presently  children  came  to 
make  the  home  even  happier.  A  few  years  passed  by,  when 
like  a  bolt  from  a  clear  sky  something  came  that  turned  off 
the  light  from  my  uncle's  soul.  A  malignant  cancer  devel- 
oped on  the  breast  of  his  wife.  There  was  no  church  in  that 
section  of  the  country  in  those  days.  Twice  she  had  that  can- 
cer taken  out  with  caustics  and  suffered  all  the  torments  of 
hell.  The  third  time  it  came  back,  and  then  they  went  to  a 
little  town  called  Cherokee  where  there  was  a  little  branch 
of  the  Saints  presided  over  by  Elder  Crippen,  if  I  remember 
correctly.  The  Saints  there  got  together  and  fasted  and 
prayed  and  she  was  administered  to,  and  that  night  that  pu- 
trid cancer  came  away.  The  sore  healed  up  and  she  lived  to 
be  an  old  woman.  God  stooped  down  and  turned  the  light  on 
again  in  that  home. 

Thank  God,  our  gospel  came  not  to  us  in  word  only  but  in 
power  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  much  assurance. 

During  the  revival  meetings  at  Independence  one  evening  I 
was  called  to  go  and  administer  to  a  young  mother  who  was 
staying  at  the  home  of  Brother  Lee,  only  a  few  doors  from 
our  home.  She  had  a  little  baby  five  weeks  old  and  for  five 
weeks  she  had  lain  in  bed  threatened  with  appendicitis  and 
the  doctors  said  she  would  have  to  undergo  an  operation. 
Brother  Richard  Lambert  and  I  went  from  the  church,  from 
that  great  splendid  assembly  of  young  people;  and  with  that 
spiritual  power  flooding  our  souls,  we  went  into  that  home, 
and  as  we  entered  the  door  I  knew  positively  that  woman 
would  be  healed.  That  was  on  Thursday  night,  and  Sunday 
morning  she  came  to  the  church  and  came  up  the  steps  of  the 
altar  with  her  baby  for  us  to  bless.  Our  gospel  came  not  unto 
us  in  word  only. 

When  I  myself  was  stricken  down  with  severe  illness  some 
years  ago.  and  was  packed  away  to  California,  I  did  not  ex- 
pect to  live,  and  to  tell  the  truth  did  not  care  to  live.  But 
just  before  I  left,  my  mother  came  and  put  into  my  hand  a 
communication  she  had  received,  which  said,  in  substance, 
"The  Spirit  says  to  mine  handmaiden,  Clara  C.  Smith,  her 
son  shall  recover  and  she  shall  see  him  return  and  hear  him 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  53 

preach  the  gospel  and  prophesy  and  see  him  baptize  those 
who  are  dear  to  her."  I  am  here  to-night  in  answer  to  the 
prediction  that  came  to  her,  and  through  the  grace  of  God. 

We  branch  off  in  this  way  because  the  laying  on  of  hands 
is  associated  with  these  wonderful  things  and  we  cannot  con- 
sider it  aside  from  them.  So  I  wish  to  talk  this  evening  a 
few  minutes  on  this  question  of  divine  healing  which  is  con- 
nected with  the  theme  under  consideration.  Some  one  may 
say,  "Well,  why  is  it  then  if  the  sick  are  healed,  here  is  so- 
and-so  and  there  is  so-and-so  who  are  not  healed  ?  How  do  you 
account  for  it?"  God  knows  why.  I  do  not.  Paul  wrote 
(as  recorded  in  2  Timothy  4:  20)  that  one  of  his  fellow  serv- 
ants he  had  left  sick  at  Miletum.  Why  did  he  not  heal  him 
instead  of  leaving  him  ?  I  do  not  know.  The  fact  that  some 
are  not  healed  does  not  controvert  the  fact  that  many  are 
healed,  and  we  read  on  one  occasion  that  Jesus  Christ  himself 
could  do  no  great  works  in  a  certain  place  because  the  peo- 
ple had  no  faith.  Our  faith  does  not  always  'rise  to  the  level 
where  we  can  receive  these  blessings. 

We  do  not  believe  in  a  fanatical  attitude  on  this  question, 
one  that  will  make  people  disregard  the  law  of  the  land; 
wherever  the  law  says  to  call  in  a  physician,  or  to  observe 
quarantine,  the  law  should  be  observed.  Also  the  sentiment 
of  a  community  ought  to  be  respected;  moreover  we  believe 
in  sanitation  and  in  intelligent  nursing  and  proper  medication, 
and  for  that  reason  we  have  a  sanitarium  at  Independence 
to  which  people  may  come  and  be  prayed  for  and  adminis- 
tered to  and  if  they  desire  be  nursed  or  have  medical  treat- 
ment. 

You  must  also  bear  in  mind  that  this  is  one  of  the  signs  of 
the  gospel.  There  are  several  cults  which  have  arisen  whose 
sole  propaganda  consists  of  divine  healing,  and  there  doesn't 
seem  to  be  anything  else  they  preach  or  believe;  but  Jesus 
Christ  said: 

"Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature.  He  that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be  saved; 
but  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned.  And  these  signs 
shall  follow  them  that  believe."— Mark  16:  15-17. 

Believe  what?  The  gospel.  The  gospel  is  the  chief  thing. 
A  sign  is  secondary  or  subsidiary  even  though  it  may  be  ex 


54  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


ceedingly  important.  So  do  not  be  deceived  simply  because 
somebody  preaches  divine  healing,  but  find  out  whether  or 
not  they  are  preaching  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  That  is 
the  fundamental  thing  to  tie  to. 

Then  another  consideration,  Jesus  says  these  signs  shall 
follow  them  that  believe.  Some  say,  "Well,  let  us  see  some- 
thing of  the  kind  and  then  we  will  believe."  I  never  knew  a 
convert  made  yet  by  a  miracle  or  an  act  of  healing.  How 
many  of  the  lepers  whom  Jesus  healed  were  converted  ?  Only 
one  of  ten  even  came  back  to  say  thank  you.  There  are  peo- 
ple right  here  in  Lamoni  who  have  observed  the  most  marvel- 
ous cases  of  healing  right  in  their  own  homes,  who  yet  remain 
outside  the  fold  of  God.  The  thing  that  converts  people  is 
the  preaching  of  the  gospel,  and  when  its  logic  and  appeal 
of  love  have  found  way  into  heart  and  brain,  then  these  signs 
follow  the  believer  as  a  comfort,  a  strength,  and  an  aid. 

The  laying  on  of  hands  is  very  intimately  associated  with 
divine  healing.  Jesus  Christ  himself  set  the  custom: 

"Now  when  the  sun  was  setting,  all  they  that  had  any 
sick  with  divers  diseases  brought  them  unto  him;  and  he 
laid  his  hands  on  every  one  of  them,  and  healed  them." — 
Luke  4:40. 

Mark  8:  23,  25;  Luke  13: 13;  Matthew  8:  3  all  record  in- 
stances in  which  Jesus  Christ  practiced  the  laying  on  of  hands 
for  the  healing  of  the  sick,  and  he  said,  "The  works  I  do  shall 
ye  do  also."  Also  Jesus  said,  "They  shall  lay  hands  on  the 
sick,  and  they  shall  recover." — Mark  16: 18. 

So  we  find  the  familiar  statement, 

"Is  any  sick  among  you?  Let  him  call  for  the  elders  of 
the  church,  and  let  them  pray  over  him  (anointing  him 
with  oil  in  the  name  of  the  Lord:  and  the  prayer  of  faith 
shall  save  the  sick,  and  the  Lord  shall  raise  him  up;  and  if 
he  have  committed  sins,  they  shall  be  forgiven  him." — 
James  5:  14,  15. 

Here  we  have  the  course  that  is  to  be  pursued  in  order  to 
receive  the  blessing  of  divine  healing. 

One  more  instance  I  will  note,  and  that  is  the  instance  of 
the  healing  of  the  Apostle  Paul.  I  told  you  last  night  the 
story  of  Paul  who  was  on  his  journey  to  Damascus  to  perse- 
cute the  saints,  and  on  the  way  the  Lord  Jesus  appeared  to 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  55 

him  and  he  was  stricken  down  and  taken  blind  into  Damascus. 
One  Ananias  came  to  him,  being  sent  of  the  Lord,  and  said, 
"The  Lord  even  Jesus  who  appeared  to  you  in  the  way  sent 
me."  The  Lord  sent  Ananias,  and  the  record  says  that  Ana- 
nias came  and  "putting  his  hands  on  him  said,  Brother  Saul, 
the  Lord,  even  Jesus,  that  appeared  unto  thee  in  the  way  as 
thou  earnest,  hath  sent  me,  that  thou  mightest  receive  thy 
sight,  and  be  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost."  (Acts  9: 17.)  And 
immediately  the  scales  fell  from  Paul's  eyes.  He  was  healed 
and  was  baptized  and  received  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

For  Confirmation  and  Bestowal  of  Holy  Ghost 

This  ordinance  is  practiced  for  the  confirmation  of  mem- 
bers and  for  the  bestowal  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Paul  said  that 
there  is  one  Lord,  one  faith,  and  one  baptism;  but  it  is  a  dual 
baptism,  the  baptism  of  the  water  and  the  Spirit,  as  Jesus 
said,  "Except  a  man  be  born  of  the  water  and  of  the  Spirit 
he  cannot  enter  the  kingdom  of  God." — John  3:  5.  For  some 
reason  God,  even  as  he  chose  to  associate  human  instrumen- 
tality with  the  baptism  of  the  water,  chose  to  associate  it 
also  with  the  baptism  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  certainly  we 
win  admit  that  all  need  the  Holy  Spirit  as  a  guide,  because 
Jesus  Christ  said  it  should  come  to  guide  us  into  all  truth. 
(John  16: 13.) 

You  young  people  are  seeking  after  truth.  That  is  why 
some  of  you  are  going  to  college;  that  is  why  you  are  here. 
Jesus  said  he  would  send  the  Holy  Spirit  to  guide  his  follow- 
ers into  all  truth.  Let  us  see  how  in  days  gone  by  this  ordi- 
nance of  confirmation  was  attended  to  and  the  Holy  Spirit 
bestowed  on  those  who  received  it.  We  read: 

"Now  when  the  apostles  which  were  at  Jerusalem  heard 
that  Samaria  had  received  the  word  of  God,  they  sent  unto 
them  Peter  and  John:  who,  when  they  were  come  down, 
prayed  for  them,  that  they  might  receive  the  Holy  Ghost; 
(For  as  yet  he  was  fallen  upon  none  of  them:  only  they  were 
baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus.)  [They  had  been 
baptized,  but  for  some  reason  the  Holy  Spirit  had  not 
come  upon  them.]  Then  laid  they  their  hands  on  them,  and 
they  received  the  Holy  Ghost."— Acts  8 :  14-17. 

One  more  instance: 

"And  it  came  to  pass,  that,  while  Apollos  was  at  Corinth, 
Paul  having  passed  through  the  upper  coasts  came  to  Ephe- 


56  Zwn  Builders1  Sermons 

sus:  and  finding  certain  disciples,  he  said  unto  them,  Have 
ye  received  the  Holy  Ghost  since  ye  believed?  And  they 
said  unto  him,  We  have  not  so  much  as  heard  whether  there 
be  any  Holy  Ghost.  .  .  .  [Some  one  had  been  going  through 
there  preaching  and  baptizing  who  had  no  right  to  do  it,  and 
so  evidently  did  not  understand  the  gospel,  though  claiming 
to  baptize  with  John's  baptism.  They  had  not  heard  there 
was  such  a  thing  as  the  Holy  Ghost.]  Then  said  Paul,  John 
verily  baptized  with  the  baptism  of  repentance,  saying  unto 
the  people,  that  they  should  believe  on  him  which  should 
come  after  him,  that  is,  on  Christ  Jesus.  When  they  heard 
this;  they  were  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus.  And 
when  Paul  had  laid  his  hands  upon  them,  the  Holy  Ghost 
came  on  them;  and  they  spake  with  tongues,  and  prophesied. 
And  all  the  men  were  about  twelve." — Acts  19:  1-7. 

I  know  it  is  argued  by  some  that  this  work  was  limited  to 
the  twelve  apostles;  that  the  twelve  did  lay  hands  on  the  peo- 
ple, did  baptize  with  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  heal,  but  no  one 
else  had  the  right;  but  I  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that 
Ananias  was  not  an  apostle  and  yet  he  came  to  Paul  and 
said,  "Jesus  sent  me  that  you  might  receive  your  sight  and 
be  filled  with  the  Holy  Ghost." 

Why  should  anyone  scoff  at  this  gospel  principle?  It  has 
been  associated  with  the  most  holy  experiences  of  humanity. 
It  has  a  deep  religious  significance.  It  is  a  part  of  the  ritual 
that  God  himself  established;  and  as  one  of  old  said,  "Who 
are  we  that  we  should  withstand  God."  He  chose  to  make  it 
a  part  of  his  doctrine.  That  ought  to  be  sufficient  for  us. 

Other  Revivals  Needed 

Now  just  a  word  in  conclusion  about  the  effect  of  this  re- 
vival. You  are  listening  patiently,  and  evidently  with  a  great 
degree  of  interest,  to  the  expounding  of  the  doctrines  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  we  are  emphasizing  those  doctrines  because  of 
their  very  deep  significance  and  importance.  But  considera- 
tion of  them  will  be  absolutely  useless  to  you  unless  you  avail 
yourselves  of  the  blessings  that  follow  in  their  wake.  These 
doctrines  are  not  by  any  means  an  end;  they  are  simply  a 
means  to  an  end. 

God  set  up  a  ladder  and  you  can  climb  the  rounds,  faith, 
repentance,  baptism,  the  laying  on  of  hands,  and  by  and  by 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


the  resurrection  of  the  dead,  and  eternal  judgment,  and  you 
will  find  yourself  in  the  presence  of  God. 

I  have  heard  people  say — they  said  it  in  Independence — 
"Oh,  yes,  this  is  a  wonderful  revival,  but  it  will  soon  be  over 
and  the  effects  will  wear  off  and  it  will  have  to  be  done  all 
over  again."  Well,  what  of  it?  When  you  eat  a  splendid 
Thanksgiving  dinner  you  don't  expect  it  to  last  all  the  year, 
do  you?  The  chances  are  that  by  evening  your  mother  will 
find  you  prying  about  in  the  cupboard  for  something  to  eat, 
and  the  next  day  you  are  ready  for  three  good  meals.  You 
come  here  to  be  filled  with  spiritual  food,  but  you  will  not 
get  that  here  which  will  satisfy  you  forever.  You  will  need 
to  come  to  the  table  of  God  often  in  many  revivals.  We  ought 
to  have  revivals  of  this  sort  at  leas^once  a  year.  This  is  but 
a  beginning;  this  is  but  a  promise,  a  little  thing,  a  very  little 
thing  compared  to  what  you  will  see  before  you  die — small 
to  what  you  will  see  before  you  are  ten  years  older.  I  think 
I  am  safe  in  making  that  prediction.  I  tell  you  this  army  of 
young  people  is  going  to  count  for  something — but  this  is  not 
really  the  army.  These  are  the  recruiting  officers — we  are 
training  a  group  of  recruiting  officers  here,  and  we  expect  you 
to  go  out  and  gather  the  army. 

Up  Against  a  Real  Struggle 

You  will  get  hungry  again,  and  of  course  you  will  have  to 
come  to  preaching  meeting  and  prayer  meeting  from  time  to 
time,  because  the  effect  of  this  meeting  will  wear  off.  Or,  to 
change  the  figure,  you  young  fellows  who  play  football  do  not 
expect  that  at  the  first  kick  you  get  at  the  ball  you  will  send 
it  clear  down  the  field  and  between  the  goal  posts  and  on 
over  the  horizon.  When  you  make  a  terrific  struggle  to  make 
a  ten  yard  gain  and  then  probably  lose  it  or  part  of  it,  the 
captain  doesn't  say,  It  is  no  good,  boys;  we  will  have  to  do  it 
all  over  again.  Certainly  not;  you  are  up  against  the  real 
thing;  you  have  to  struggle  hard,  and  if  you  lose  a  few  yards 
you  work  the  harder  to  make  it  up,  and  go  and  go  and  keep 
going  until  you  make  your  touchdown. 

I  will  tell  you  that  in  this  work  you  are  up  against  the  real 
thing.  You  may  think  this  religious  talk  is  poetical  and  fan- 
ciful and  romantic,  nothing  in  it,  but  I  tell  you  when  you 


58  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

start  out  to  live  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  you  are  up  against 
the  real  thing. 

This  gospel  demands  that  you  be  clean  men  and  women, 
and  it  is  not  easy  to  be  clean  in  this  dirty  world,  which  is 
getting  dirtier  every  day.  This  gospel  demands  that  you  shall 
be  honest  men  and  women,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  be  honest  in 
this  dishonest  old  world.  This  gospel  demands  that  you  shall 
be  industrious,  and  there  will  be  many  times  when  it  will  be 
much  easier  to  play  than  to  work.  This  gospel  demands  that 
you  shall  be  studious,  and  it  is  much  easier  to  flunk  than  it 
is  to  make  your  grades.  It  is  easier  to  get  by  with  your  les- 
sons than  to  get  them.  This  gospel  demands  that  you  be  true 
men  and  women,  and  when  you  undertake  that  job  you  are 
up  against  the  real  thing;  but  as  the  Bible  says,  If  God  be 
for  us  who  can  be  against  us? 

When  I  point  out  the  terrific  obstacles  you  will  encounter 
when  you  try  to  live  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  in  this  sin- 
cursed  earth,  when  your  young  blood  runs  riot  with  tempta- 
tion, with  passion  and  desire  and  appetite,  I  do  not  wish  to 
discourage  you — I  point  you  to  one  who  is  greater  than  you 
or  I,  Jesus  Christ,  who  overcame  all  of  these  things  and  put 
them  behind  him,  and  his  desire  is  to  make  you  like  as  he  was. 

May  he  pour  out  his  Spirit  upon  you  and  endow  you  with 
his  power  is  my  prayer. 


Zion  Builders9  Sermons  59 

The  Resurrection  and  the  Eternal  Judgment 

Sermon  by  Elbert  A.  Smith  in  Zion  Builder 
Series,  at  Lamoni,  Iowa.  Reported  by  R.  A. 
Wight  and  E stella  Wight 

"And  I  saw  thrones,  and  they  sat  upon  them,  and  judg- 
ment was  given  unto  them :  and  I  saw  the  souls  of  them  that 
were  beheaded  for  the  witness  of  Jesus,  and  for  the  word  of 
God,  and  which  had  not  worshiped  the  beast,  neither  his 
image,  neither  had  received  his  mark  upon  their  foreheads, 
or  in  their  hands;  and  they  lived  and  reigned  with  Christ  a 
thousand  years.  But  the  rest  of  the  dead  lived  not  again  un- 
til the  thousand  years  were  finished.  This  is  the  first  resur- 
rection. Blessed  and  holy  is  he  that  hath  part  in  the  first  res- 
urrection: on  such  the  second  death  hath  no  power,  but  they 
shall  be  priests  of  God  and  of  Christ,  and  shall  reign  with 
him  a  thousand  years.  And  when  the  thousand  years  are  ex- 
pired, Satan  shall  be  loosed  out  of  his  prison,  and  shall  go  out 
to  deceive  the  nations  which  are  in  the  four  quarters  of  the 
earth,  Gog  and  Magog,  to  gather  them  together  to  battle:  the 
number  of  whom  is  as  the  sand  of  the  sea.  And  they  went  up 
on  the  breadth  of  the  earth,  and  compassed  the  camp  of  the 
saints  about,  and  the  beloved  city:  and  fire  came  down  from 
God  out  of  heaven,  and  devoured  them.  And  the  devil  that 
deceived  them  was  cast  into  the  lake  of  fire  and  brimstone, 
where  the  beast  and  the  false  prophet  are,  and  shall  be  tor- 
mented day  and  night  forever  and  ever." — Revelation  20 :  4-10. 

Thus  far  we  have  considered  four  of  the  six  fundamental 
principles  that  Paul  names  in  the  6th  chapter  of  Hebrews. 
These  four  are  principles  that  we  have  to  do  with  in  life: 
Faith,  repentance,  baptism,  and  laying  on  of  hands.  The  re- 
maining two  of  the  six  have  to  do  with  the  life  beyond:  The 
resurrection  and  the  eternal  judgment.  The  two  last  named 
are  intimately  associated.  While  they  should  have  had  two 
sermons,  we  shall  endeavor  to  treat  them  in  one. 

We  are  told,  "The  Lord  is  a  God  of  knowledge,  and  by  him 
actions  are  weighed." — 1  Samuel  2:  3. 

I  presume  that  the  theme  of  eternal  judgment  is  not  pop- 
ular in  polite  society.  It  would  not  be  a  favorite  topic  at  a 
card  party  or  a  dance  or  almost  any  other  festive  occasion; 
but  God  is  not  always  in  good  taste  as  judged  by  our  stand- 
ards. 


60  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

Weighing  a  King 

You  remember  the  old  story  of  King  Belshazzar  who  made 
a  great  feast  in  his  hall  and  gathered  around  him  a  thousand 
of  his  nobles  with  their  wives  and  painted  concubines  and 
drank  wine  out  of  the  sacred  vessels  that  his  father  had  stolen 
from  the  temple  in  Jerusalem.  Right  in  the  midst  of  that 
feast  God  dragged  into  the  festal  chamber  some  balances,  and 
he  threw  the  king  into  one  balance  and  put  a  king-sized 
weight  in  the  other  side  of  the  balances,  and  the  weight  went 
down  like  a  plummet  and  the  king  went  up  like  a  rocket.  I 
imagine  that  is  about  the  way  the  average  king  would  "weigh 
up." 

Of  course,  this  was  altogether  invisible  thus  far,  but  at  that 
juncture  there  did  appear  something  that  was  visible — a  hand 
inscribing  a  writing  under  a  candle  on  the  wall  where  all 
could  see  it.  "Mene,  Mene,  Tekel,  Upharsin,"  which  being  in- 
terpreted, among  other  things  said,  "Thou  art  weighed  in  the 
balances,  and  art  found  wanting.  Thy  kingdom  is  divided, 
and  given  to  the  Medes  and  Persians." — Daniel  5:  27,  28. 

That  was  the  end  of  King  Belshazzar.  When  God  gets  tired 
of  the  fol!y  of  a  king,  it  is  very  easy  to  remove  him  from  the 
palace  and  set  him  to  sawing  wood  in  Holland  or  to  brooding 
with  the  sea  gulls  on  Saint  Helena. 

If  a  king  could  not  escape  being  weighed  in  the  ba]ances, 
do  you  think  that  ordinary  people  like  you  and  I  can  hope 
to  escape?  God  is  a  lord  of  knowledge,  and  by  him  human 
actions  are  weighed.  Every  man,  sooner  or  later,  will  be 
weighed  in  the  balances,  and  fortunate  will  be  the  man  con- 
cerning whom  it  is  written,  "Thou  art  not  found  wanting." 

Judgecf,  Now 

It  is  true  in  a  sense  that  we  are  judged  every  day  and 
every  moment.  If  you  put  your  hand  into  the  fire,  you  are 
judged  and  sentenced  and  punished  immediately;  but  fortu- 
nately if  you  take  your  hand  out  and  repent  and  put  healing 
lotions  upon  it,  nature  immediately  begins  to  forgive  you  and 
starts  the  process  of  healing.  If  you  do  a  mean,  contempti- 
ble deed,  the  sin  is  just  as  visible  in  your  face  as  is  the  scar 
upon  your  burned  hand.  As  Emerson  says,  "The  gods  we 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  61 

worship  write  their  names  upon  our  foreheads."  The  results 
are  visible  in  the  soul. 

So  we  may  say  that  to  a  certain  extent,  at  least,  we  are 
judged  and  punished  or  rewarded  as  we  journey  through  life. 
Some  people  think  that  is  all  there  is  to  judgment.  But  if 
so,  there  would  be  some  sad  injustices  done;  and  those  who 
think  that  deceive  themselves  by  believing  that  if  they  hire  a 
physician  or  a  lawyer  or  bribe  a  judge  and  escape  punish- 
ment here  upon  this  earth,  the  whole  matter  is  ended. 

A  Day  Set  for  Judgment 

But  of  course  our  theme  to-night  has  to  do  particularly 
with  the  final  great  judgment,  and  that  there  is  to  be  such  an 
occasion  is  clearly  set  fofth:  "He  hath  appointed  a  day,  in  the 
which  he  will  judge  the  worM  in  righteousness  by  that  man 
whom  he  hath  ordained." — Acts  17:  31. 

I  heard  a  little  story  at  one  time  about  a  man  who  was 
drowning,  and  another  man  risked  his  life  to  save  him.  Some 
years  later  the  man  who  was  saved  was  being  tried  for  mur- 
der, and  when  he  appeared  in  court  and  glanced  up  to  the 
bench,  he  saw  that  the  judge  was  the  man  who  had  saved  his 
life.  The  prisoner  cried,  "Do  you  not  remember  me?  You 
risked  your  life  to  save  my  life,  and  you  certainly  cannot  take 
it  from  me  now."  But  the  judge  on  the  bench  replied,  "Then 
I  was  your  savior;  now  I  am  your  judge,  and  I  can  only  judge 
you  by  the  law  and  the  evidence." 

Jesus  Christ  came  and  gave  his  life  to  save  us,  but  in  the 
great  day  that  God  has  appointed,  when  he  judges  us,  he  te^s 
us  that  we  shall  be  judged  out  of  the  things  written  in  the 
books,  and  he  himself  said,  "My  word  shall  judge  you  at  that 
day."  So  we  ought  at  least  to  familiarize  ourselves  with  the 
word  of  God,  that  we  may  be  prepared  for  that  great  judg- 
ment. 

The  statement  then  is  clear  and  plain  that  God  has  ap- 
pointed a  day  in  which  he  will  judge  the  whole  worki,  and 
this  is  borne  out  by  the  20th  chapter  of  Revelation,  a.3  we 
have  just  read,  where  John  says  he  saw  a  throne  with  God 
upon  it,  and  he  saw  the  dead,  small  and  great,  from  the  ends 
of  the  earth,  from  the  bottom  of  the  sea,  all  of  them  come 
and  stand  before  that  throne;  and  the  books  were  opened  and 


62  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

the  book  of  life  was  opened,  and  the  dead  were  judged  out  of 
the  things  written  in  the  books;  and  every  man  was  rewarded 
according  to  his  works.  We  have  it  very  clearly  established 
then  from  the  word  of  God  that  there  is  to  be  this  great  judg- 
ment day  that  awaits  all  mankind. 

Events  Preceding  the  Judgment 

It  might  be  interesting  to  us  to  consider  some  of  the  events 
that  lead  up  to  that  great  judgment  day.  They  are  monu- 
mental events,  and  the  first  one  that  we  notice  is  the  second 
coming  of  Jesus  Christ. 

You  remember  what  the  Lord  said  when  he  was  bidding  his 
disciples  good-by  and  telling  them  that  he  was  going  away  to 
leave  them,  going  to  prepare  a  place  for  them?  He  said,  "I 
will  come  again." — John  14:  3.  Some  people  have  considered 
that  his  coming  would  be  simply  a  spiritual  affair — that  when- 
ever he  came  into  the  heart  of  a  repentant  sinner,  that  was 
the  second  coming  of  Jesus  Christ;  but  the  Scriptures  indi- 
cate in  many  places  very  clearly  that  his  coming  is  to  be  a 
personal  one,  quite  as  much  so  as  when  he  was  here  before. 
For  instance  we  read: 

"And  when  he  had  spoken  these  things,  while  they  beheld, 
he  was  taken  up ;  and  a  cloud  received  him  out  of  their  sight. 
And  while  they  looked  steadfastly  toward  heaven  as  he  went 
up,  behold,  two  men  stood  by  them  in  white  apparel;  which 
also  said,  Ye  men  of  Galilee,  why  stand  ye  gazing  up  into 
heaven?  this  same  Jesus,  which  is  taken  up  from  you  into 
heaven,  shall  so  come  in  like  manner  as  ye  have  seen  him  go 
into  heaven." — Acts  1 :  9-12. 

There  can  be  no  question  that  his  departure  was  personal. 
The  angels  took  pains  to  testify  that  he  should  come  again  in 
precisely  the  same  manner.  We  are  told  elsewhere  that  every 
eye  shall  see  him,  for  he  shall  be  revealed  in  the  clouds  of 
glory  with  the  holy  angels  to  take  judgment  on  the  earth  and 
to  reward  every  man  according  to  his  works. 

Quite  immediately  associated  with  the  second  coming  of 
Christ  is  the  resurrection  of  the  dead.  I  wish  to  read  some 
passages,  so  that  there  will  be  no  error  made  in  quoting  them, 
because  we  might  lose  some  of  the  force.  You  will  notice  the 
beautiful  sentiment  of  the  prayer  that  was  offered  this  eve- 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  63 

ning,  of  thanksgiving  that  we  are  permitted  to  look  beyond 
the  cold  marble  that  marks  the  resting  place  of  our  dead. 
We  are  told: 

"But  I  would  not  have  you  to  be  ignorant,  brethren,  con- 
cerning them  which  are  asleep,  that  ye  sorrow  not,  even  as 
others  which  have  no  hope.  For  if  we  believe  that  Jesus  died 
and  rose  again,  even  so  them  also  which  sleep  in  Jesus  will 
God  bring  with  him.  For  this  we  say  unto  you  by  the  word  of 
the  Lord,  that  we  which  are  alive  and  remain  unto  the  coming 
of  the  Lord  shall  not  prevent  them  which  are  asleep.  For  the 
Lord  himself  shall  descend  from  heaven  with  a  shout,  with 
the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and  with  the  trump  of  God:  and 
the  dead  in  Christ  shall  rise  first." — 1  Thessalonians  4 :  13-17. 

We  have  then  the  definite  statement  that  Jesus  is  coming 
and  that  the  dead  in  Christ  will  rise  at  his  coming.  And  the 
statement  is  made  in  the  20th  chapter  of  Revelation,  already 
read  in  your  hearing,  that  those  who  rise  and  have  part  and 
are  blessed  in  the  first  resurrection  which  is  called  "the  res- 
urrection of  the  just"  will  live  and  reign  with  Christ  for  a 
thousand  years.  Then  the  story  goes  on  immediately,  that 
the  rest  of  the  dead  will  not  live  again  until  the  thousand 
years  are  ended. 

So  we  have  two  resurrections,  just  as  it  is  stated  in  Acts 
24:  15,  that  there  shall  be  a  resurrection  of  the  dead,  both  of 
the  just  and  unjust;  and  in  Daniel  12:  2,  where  it  is  said  that 
some  shall  rise  to  everlasting  life  and  some  to  everlasting 
shame  and  condemnation. 

There  are  then  the  following  great  events  leading  up  to 
and  preceding  the  final  judgment:  The  second  coming  of 
Christ;  the  first  resurrection,  the  millennial  reign;  the  resur- 
rection of  the  wicked;  and  then  comes  the  time  that  John 
saw,  when  all  shall  stand  before  the  throne  of  God  and  be 
judged  out  of  the  things  that  are  written  in  the  books. 

Characteristics  of  the  Judgment 

I  wish  you  to  consider  to-night  some  of  the  characteristics 
of  the  great  judgment.  John  tells  us  that  he  saw  the  dead, 
both  great  and  small,  from  the  king  to  the  peasant,  rich  and 
poor,  stand  before  the  throne  of  God.  In  that  day  there  will 
not  be  a  man  so  powerful  that  he  can  resist  the  summons  that 
goes  out  from  that  tribunal:  "Come  ye  into  court!"  And 


64  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

there  will  not  be  a  man  so  insignificant  that  he  will  be  over- 
looked. All  will  be  searched  out  and  brought  into  that  court 
that  all  may  be  judged  according  to  the  works  done  in  the 
flesh.  I  don't  mean  to  say  necessarily  that  all  this  will  oc- 
cur in  a  eing^  day  or  at  a  single  sitting;  but  there  is  to  be  a 
judgment.  All  men  must  pass  under  it.  God  is  to  be  their 
judge. 

There  is  one  thing  that  is  greatly  encouraging  to  us;  that 
judgment  is  to  be  absolutely  just.  Here  in  the  civil  courts  in 
this  land  we  undertake  to  administer  absolute  justice.  But 
some  of  the  courts  are  corrupt,  and  those  that  are  not  cor- 
rupt can  never  do  any  more  than  approximate  justice,  be- 
cause our  laws  are  imperfect,  the  evidence  may  not  be  true, 
and  the  judge  may  not  have  abso]ute  wisdom  in  his  mind;  so 
all  we  can  ever  hope  to  do  in  this  life  is  to  approximate  jus-, 
tice.  Certainly  if  the  record  of  injustice  done  in  the  name  of 
justice  in  the  courts  of  the  land  is  ever  written,  we  will  be 
astonished. 

Here  is  a  little  leaf  from  a  single  court  record:  A  man  was 
murdered  in  the  Carnegie  Steel  Works,  there  being  one  wit- 
ness to  the  murder.  All  of  the  employees  of  the  plant  were 
lined  up  and  this  witness  passed  down  the  line  to  identify  the 
murderer.  As  he  walked  he  stumbled,  and  one  of  the  men  by 
the  name  of  Andrew  Tosh  laughed.  It  made  the  witness  an- 
gry and  he  pointed  at  Andrew  Tosh  and  said,  "There  is  the 
murderer!"  And  for  sixteen  years  that  man  served  at  hard 
labor  in  the  State  penitentiary,  and  when  the  false  witness 
finally  confessed,  all  the  State  could  do  was  to  pardon  An- 
drew Tosh  for  a  crime  he  had  never  committed,  and  all  that 
Carnegie  couM  do  was  to  pension  him  in  his  old  age.  No 
power  on  earth  could  restore  the  lost  years  or  wipe  out  the 
shame  and  degradation  and  the  despair  that  he  had  suffered 
because  of  an  error  in  an  attempt  to  administer  human  jus- 
tice. Thank  God,  when  we  stand  in  that  great  judgment  day 
there  will  be  no  mistakes  made. 

The  Basis  of  Judgment 

We  might  consider  next  the  basis  of  judgment,  because 
that  is  exceedingly  important,  and  I  think  that  our  people 
have  a  little  different  idea  from  almost  any  other  people  on 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  65 

this  question  of  the  eternal  judgment.  At  least  we  have  a 
different  idea  from  any  that  I  have  ever  found  in  the  creeds 
or  have  ever  heard  preached  from  any  other  pulpit. 

It  is  stated  in  the  20th  chapter  of  Revelation,  as  we  have 
already  read,  that  we  shall  be  judged  and  rewarded  every 
man  according  to  his  works;  but  I  do  not  think  that  is  abso- 
lutely the  only  basis  of  judgment.  I  believe  that  God  does 
not  necessarily  have  to  read  our  record  and  pass  upon  our 
works.  We  read: 

"I  am  he  which  searcheth  the  reins  and  hearts:  and  I  will 
give  unto  every  one  of  you  according  to  your  works." — Rev- 
elation 2 :  23. 

God  looks  into  the  heart.  We  ourselves  can  put  a  man  un- 
der the  X-ray  and  look  right  through  him  and  see  his  heart 
beat.  I  have  done  it.  But  we  cannot  tell  whether  his  heart  is 
black  or  white.  We  can  look  through  a  man's  skull  to  his 
brain,  but  we  cannot  tell  what  he  is  thinking  about. 

But  God  looks  through  the  individual,  and  no  matter 
whether  we  wear  the  robe  of  the  righteous  or  the  cloak  of 
hypocrisy,  fat  or  lean,  tall  or  short,  rich  or  poor,  he  can  look 
in  the  heart  and  see  what  a  man  is,  and  know  what  he  has 
stored  up  in  the  way  of  character. 

I  tell  you  the  only  safety  deposit  bank  on  earth  in  which 
you  can  deposit  your  riches  to  be  sure  that  they  will  be  avail- 
able on  the  other  shore,  is  your  own  immortal  soul. 

I  wrote  a  little  story  once  about  a  collector.  Perhaps  I  had 
better  tell  you  a  little  of  it.  It  ran  like  this:  Once  upon  a 
time  there  lived  a  man  who  had  a  passion  for  collecting  paint- 
ings, and  having  excellent  taste  and  a  long  purse,  he  accumu- 
lated a  great  gallery  of  splendid  paintings ;  but  he  was  a  thin 
man  and  one  cold  day  the  fog  got  too  close  to  his  ribs  and 
he  took  cold  and  died  of  pneumonia.  He  could  not  take  his 
paintings  with  him.  They  were  sold  at  auction  and  scattered 
abroad. 

At  the  same  time  there  was  a  man  who  was  a  connoisseur 
of  wines;  and  having  a  deep  cellar  and  wide  resources,  he  ac- 
cumulated a  great  stock  of  rare  wines  and  availed  himself 
freely  of  their  privileges.  But  being  a  very  fleshy  man  and 
very  red  in  the  face,  one  day  his  too  abundant  blood  broke 
through  upon  the  too  small  area  reserved  for  brains,  and  he 


66  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

died  of  apoplexy.  He  could  not  take  his  wines  with  him.  His 
sons  drank  them  up,  cursed  him,  and  went  out  to  hunt  for 
work. 

At  the  same  time  there  lived  a  woman  who  had  a  passion 
for  collecting  rare  gems.  Having  great  wealth,  she  accumu- 
lated diamonds,  rubies,  pearls,  emeralds,  sapphires,  moon- 
stones, and  gems  of  every  name  and  hue;  but  while  she  was 
gathering  the  gems  the  years  were  departing.  There  were 
no  children.  Her  husband  left  her.  The  cat  died.  Finally 
the  poor  old  lady  passed  off  into  eternity  and  her  gems  were 
sold  and  scattered  in  ten  kingdoms,  but  not  one  of  them  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

At  the  same  time  there  lived  a  man  of  limited  resources, 
who,  one  day  looking  into  the  miror  when  he  was  exceed- 
ingly angry,  was  disturbed  by  what  he  saw,  and  he  sat  him- 
self to  acquire  the  virtue  of  patience  and  an  even  temper. 
When  he  had  attained  that,  it  pleased  him  so  much  that  he 
went  on  all  the  rest  of  his  life  collecting  virtues:  wisdom, 
temperance,  honesty,  purity,  charity,  and  humility.  Finally, 
when  he  died  the  community  awoke  to  the  fact  that  a  rea]ly 
great  man  had  lived  among  the  people;  but  no  one  quarreled 
over  the  estate,  because  he  took  it  with  him. 

Peter  says: 

"Add  to  your  faith  virtue;  and  to  virtue  knowledge;  and 
to  knowledge  temperance;  and  to  temperance  patience;  and 
to  patience  godliness;  and  to  godliness  brotherly  kindness; 
and  to  brotherly  kindness  charity." — 2  Peter  1 :  5-8. 

And  he  says  if  you  will  do  those  things,  you  shall  be  neither 
barren  nor  unfruitful,  and  there  shall  be  administered  unto 
you  an  abundant  entrance  into  the  everlasting  kingdom  of 
our  God. 

The  only  way  to  be  sure  that  you  are  going  to  be  taken 
care  of  on  the  other  side  is  to  become  a  collector  of  virtues; 
and  I  like  the  idea,  as  Brother  Joseph  used  to  say,  of  the 
"abundant  entrance"  into  the  kingdom  of  God.  He  said  he  did 
not  want  the  door  opened  grudgingly  to  let  him  slip  in  side- 
ways; he  wanted  the  guardian  to  throw  it  wide  open  and  say, 
"Enter  thou  into  the  joy  of  thy  Lord." 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  67 

Theological  Blunders 

When  we  come  to  consider  this  question  of  the  eternal  judg- 
ment, we  are  reminded  of  some  of  the  theological  blunders 
that  have  been  made  in  the  name  of  God  and  in  the  name  of 
justice,  and  one  of  these  blunders  was  the  old  doctrine  of  pre- 
destination. The  old  creeds  used  to  say: 

"By  the  decree  of  God  for  the  manifestation  of  his  glory; 
some  men  and  angels  are  predestined  unto  everlasting  life, 
and  others  foreordained  to  everlasting  death.  These  angels 
and  men  thus  predestined,  and  foreordained,  are  particu- 
larly and  unchangeably  designed,  and  their  number  is  so  cer- 
tain and  definite,  that  it  cannot  be  either  increased  or  dimin- 
ished." 

That  was  in  the  creeds  in  the  year  1820  when  Joseph  Smith 
said  that  the  Lord  told  him  that  the  creeds  were  an  abomina- 
tion in  his  sight. 

Not  many  years  ago  a  well-known  minister  in  the  East 
wrote  to  me  and  said,  "You  people  say  that  at  the  time  when 
Joseph  Smith  was  supposed  to  have  received  his  revelation 
the  creeds  were  wrong.  I  challenge  you  to  name  one  creed 
in  force  at  that  time  that  was  wrong  in  one  fundamental 
point."  And  I  turned  to  the  creed  of  his  own  denomination 
and  found  in  it  this  very  statement  of  predestination,  and  it 
was  there  for  forty  years  after  Joseph  Smith  had  his  vision. 
I  printed  it  in  the  Herald  and  I  never  heard  anything  more 
from  the  reverend  gentleman. 

I  do  not  wonder  that  the  Lord  said  that  the  creeds  were 
an  abomination  in  his  sight.  That  old  relic  of  Galvanism  was 
twin  brother  to  the  old  Mohammedan  idea,  as  Clarke  tells  us 
in  the  Ten  Great  Religions. 

"Accordingly,  when  God — so  runs  the  tradition — I  had  bet- 
ter say  blasphemy — resolved  to  create  the  human  race,  he 
took  into  his  hands  a  mass  of  earth,  the  same  whence  all 
mankind  were  to  be  formed,  .  .  .  having  then  divided  the 
clod  into  two  equal  portions,  he  threw  the  one  half  into  hell, 
saying,  'These  to  eternal  fire,  and  I  care  not';  and  projected 
the  other  half  into  heaven,  adding,  'and  these  to  paradise, 
and  I  care  not.'  " 

There  is  another  theological  blunder,  and  that  is  in  think- 
ing that  men  are  to  be  judged  by  their  profession  only.  I 


68  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

am  afraid  that  a  great  many  people  proceed  on  that  theory, 
feeling  that  if  the  profession  is  made  and  the  name  is  in- 
scribed on  the  church  books  all  will  be  well  in  the  day  of 
judgment. 

I  am  going  to  tell  you  another  little  story  from  real  life.  It 
received  nation-wide  publicity  some  years  ago:  the  case  of 
Henry  Clay  Bates,  of  Virginia,  the  scion  of  an  old  aristo- 
cratic Virginian  family.  This  young  man  had  a  beautiful  wife 
and  a  little  boy;  but  he  became  enamored  of  a  dissolute  girl 
in  the  neighborhood.  And  one  day  he  took  the  wife  riding  in 
his  automobile,  and  getting  out  of  the  machine  in  a  secluded 
spot  he  secured  a  shotgun  which  he  had  hidden  and  shot  her 
to  death.  He  was  tried  in  the  courts  and  sentenced  to  be 
hanged.  He  appealed  the  case  to  every  court  in  the  State 
and  even  appealed  to  the  governor  to  secure  a  pardon,  and 
was  denied;  and  at  the  last  moment,  having  exhausted  every 
resource  and  when  they  were  about  to  set  the  death  watch  at 
the  cell,  he  called  for  a  minister  of  an  orthodox  church,  con- 
fessed Christ,  was  given  assurance  of  forgiveness,  and  said, 
"I  die  happy." 

Modern  orthodox  theology  sends  him  straight  to  heaven, 
where  he  has  a  perfect  right  to  climb  up  next  to  the  great 
white  throne  and  sit  down  between  John  the  Beloved  and 
Stephen  the  Just;  but  his  poor  unfortunate  wife  did  not  have 
a  moment  to  make  her  confession;  she  did  not  belong  to  any 
church  and  never  had  accepted  Christ,  though  she  was  a  good 
woman;  so  modern  theology  would  send  her  straight  to  the 
bottomless  pit  in  company  with  Jezebel  and  Judas  Iscariot. 

Why  should  any  minister  representing  any  church  go  to 
that  cell  and  tell  that  man  that  by  simply  confessing  Christ 
he  would  enter  immediately  into  the  realms  of  the  blessed? 
And  why  is  that  thought  apparently  so  generally  accepted? 
That  man  is  to  be  judged  by  another  standard.  He  is  to  be 
judged  by  his  works,  and  his  works  may  send  him  a  long  way 
from  heaven  for  a  long  period  of  time. 

Another  mistake  of  modern  theology  is  in  dividing  human- 
ity simply  into  two  classes.  We  are  told  there  is  to  be  one 
heaven  and  one  hell.  If  you  don't  get  into  one  you  get  into 
the  other.  There  are  just  the  two  places.  One  place  of  su- 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  69 

preme  glory  and  everlasting  joy  and  bliss;  and  one  place  of 
endless  torment,  to  which  no  preacher  ever  goes  to  bear  the 
message  of  salvation  and  life,  because  there  is  supposed  to 
be  no  chance  for  repentance  after  this  life. 

I  want  to  ask  you  how  you  would  attempt  to  judge  hu- 
manity on  that  basis.  Supposing  for  instance  that  we  had  a 
line  of  men  reaching  across  this  room  from  wall  to  wall, 
standing  here  for  judgment.  Against  yonder  wall  stands  the 
meanest  man  who  ever  lived.  I  don't  know  who  he  would  be. 
I  have  met  some  mean  men.  And  there  against  the  other 
wall  stands  the  best  man  that  ever  lived.  This  line  of  men 
is  graded  all  the  way  down  from  the  best  man  to  the  mean- 
est. Now  tell  me  where  you  will  put  your  hand  down  in  that 
line  and  say,  All  on  that  side  go  to  heaven  and  enter  into  end- 
less bliss,  and  all  on  the  other  side  go  to  hell  and  suffer  end- 
less torment.  It  seems  to  me  that  it  would  be  exceedingly 
unfortunate  for  this  man  who  was  so  unlucky  as  to  miss 
heaven  by  the  thickness  of  my  hand;  and  it  would  be  very 
fortunate  for  the  other  man  who  got  to  heaven  by  the  same 
narrow  chance.  Why,  if  God  were  to  pass  judgment  like 
that,  I  believe  there  would  be  men  there  with  courage  to  rise 
up  and  say,  "You  may  be  a  God  of  power,  but  you  are  not 
a  God  of  justice;  for  we  did  better  than  that  on  earth;  in  our 
high  schools  and  colleges  we  tried  to  distribute  rewards  ac- 
cording to  merit,  and  in  our  police  courts  we  tried  to  punish 
according  to  crime." 

Fortunately  our  God  is  not  that  kind  of  a  god.  There  are 
many  degrees  of  glory  and  many  degrees  of  punishment. 
For  instance,  as  we  are  told: 

"There  is  one  glory  of  the  sun,  and  another  glory  of  the 
moon,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars:  for  one  star  differeth 
from  another  star  in  glory.  So  also  is  the  resurrection  of  the 
dead."— 1  Corinthians  15:  41,  42. 

Look  into  the  heavens  some  night  and  observe  the  stars 
from  the  most  brilliant  star  in  the  heavens  to  the  dimmest 
one  that  you  can  see  on  the  far  horizon  and  you  will  realize 
something  of  the  great  variety  of  rewards  that  God  has  to 
give  to  those  who  come  within  the  range  of  men  who  are 
saved. 


70  Zicn  Builders'  Sermons 

Why,  Jesus  said: 

"In  my  Father's  house  are  many  mansions;  if  it  were  not 
so,  I  would  have  told  you.  I  go  to  prepare  a  place  for  you." 
—John  14 :  2. 

And  I  like  to  think  that  those  many  mansions  will  be  so 
arranged  that  each  one  will  precisely  fit  the  individuality  of 
the  one  who  is  to  inhabit  it,  using  that  figure  of  speech. 

If  there  is  anything  that  makes  us  homesick  and  melan- 
choly it  is  to  ride  through  the  suburbs  of  some  city  like  Chi- 
cago and  see  endless  miles  of  tenement  houses  inhabited  by 
working  men  and  each  one  precisely  like  its  neighbor.  I  don't 
see  how  a  man  knows  when  he  gets  home  at  night. 

I  like  to  believe,  and  it  is  scriptural  doctrine,  that  God  has 
a  great  variety  of  mansions  and  glories,  and  every  man  will 
receive  absolute  justice  and  he  will  get  exactly  what  he  has 
worked  for  and  what  he  is  fit  for.  On  the  other  hand,  God 
has  a  variety  of  punishments.  It  must  be  so,  because  the  Lord 
himself  in  speaking  of  a  certain  city,  to  his  disciples,  said, 
"It  shall  be  more  tolerable  for  the  land  of  Sodom  and  Go- 
morrah, in  the  day  of  judgment,  than  for  that  city." — Mat- 
thew 10:15.  In  the  day  of  judgment,  then,  it  will  be  more 
tolerable  for  some  than  it  will  be  for  others. 

In  fact,  if  we  are  to  understand  this  matter  at  all,  we  must 
learn  to  draw  a  sort  of  line  between  salvation  and  reward. 
Jesus  Christ  came  and  brought  us  salvation.  It  is  not  and 
never  was  and  never  will  be  within  the  province  of  any  man 
to  save  himself.  Christ  came  and  made  salvation  possible  for 
us.  In  that  sense,  Jesus  did  it  all;  but  when  it  comes  to  the 
question  of  rewards,  every  man  will  get  according  to  his 
works.  It  is  up  to  each  individual,  as  we  say,  to  determine 
what  his  reward  shall  be. 

I  think  Paul  makes  that  very  plain: 

"For  other  foundation  can  no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid, 
which  is  Jesus  Christ.  Now  if  any  man  build  upon  this  foun- 
dation gold,  silver,  precious  stones,  wood,  hay,  stubble;  every 
man's  work  shall  be  made  manifest;  for  the  day  shall  declare 
it,  because  it  shall  be  revealed  by  fire;  and  the  fire  shall  try 
every  man's  work  of  what  sort  it  is.  If  any  man's  work  abide 
which  he  hath  built  thereupon,  he  shall  receive  a  reward.  If 
any  man's  work  shall  be  burned,  he  shall  suffer  loss:  but  he 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  71 


himself  shall  be  saved;  yet  so  as  by  fire." — 1  Corinthians  3: 
11-15. 

If  we  are  to  approach  the  day  of  judgment  with  any  degree 
of  equanimity  at  all,  the  time  to  begin  preparation  is  now. 
And  let  no  man  feel  that  in  the  course  of  living  this  life  he 
can  get  through  under  false  pretenses  and  receive  that  which 
he  desires  in  the  world  to  come. 

The  Other  Unwise  Builder 
Edwin  Markham  has  this  modern  parable: 

"But  there  is  flying  through  the  world  the  story  of  another 
builder,  a  foolish  eye-servant,  a  poor  rogue.  He  and  his  lit- 
tle ones  were  wretched  and  roofless,  whereupon  a  certain  good 
Samaritan  said,  in  his  heart,  'I  will  surprise  this  man  with 
the  gift  of  a  comfortable  home.'  So,  without  telling  his  pur- 
pose, he  hired  the  builder  at  fair  wages  to  build  a  house  on  a 
sunny  hill,  and  then  he  went  on  business  to  a  far  city. 

"The  builder  was  left  at  work  with  ne  watchman  but  his 
own  honor.  'Ha!'  said  he  to  his  heart,  'I  can  cheat  this  man. 
I  can  skimp  the  material  and  scamp  the  work.'  So  he  went 
on  spinning  out  the  time,  putting  in  poor  service,  poor  nails, 
poor  timbers. 

"When  the  Samaritan  returned,  the  builder  said:  'That  is 
a  fine  house  I  built  you  on  the  hill.'  'Good,'  was  the  reply; 
'go,  move  your  folks  into  it  at  once,  for  the  house  is  yours. 
Here  is  the  deed.' 

"The  man  was  thunderstruck.  He  saw  that,  instead  of 
cheating  his  friend  for  a  year,  he  had  been  industriously 
cheating  himself.  'If  I  had  only  known  it  was  my  own  house 
I  was  building/  he  kept  muttering  to  himself." 

We  are  building  the  homes  that  we  are  to  live  in,  and  if 
any  man  shirks  at  any  time  during  life,  he  will  wake  up  pres- 
ently to  find  out  he  was  cheating  himself. 

The  high  school  student  or  the  college  student  who  imag- 
ines that  he  is  sliding  through  college  and  cheating  his  teach- 
ers and  his  father  and  mother,  will  find  out  when  he  goes  out 
into  life  that  he  was  cheating  no  one  but  himself;  and  so 
those  who  have  attempted  to  live  under  the  banner  of  Christ 
but  have  not  lived  in  harmony  with  his  religion,  in  the  day  of 
judgment  will  find  they  have  built  the  house  that  they  are 
destined  to  live  in.  Now  may  God  help  us  and  bless  us  and 
aid  us  in  this  work  is  my  prayer. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  73 


The  Restoration 

Sermon  by  Elbert  A.  Smith  in  Zion  Builder 
Series  at  Lamoni,  Iowa,  Reported  by  R.  A. 
Wight  and  Estella  Wight 

I  have  two  texts,  the  first  being*  found  in  Isaiah  29 : 14 : 

"Therefore,  behold,  I  will  proceed  to  do  a  marvelous  work 
among  this  people,  even  a  marvelous  work  and  a  wonder:  for 
the  wisdom  of  their  wise  men  shall  perish,  and  the  under- 
standing of  their  prudent  men  shall  be  hid." 

The  other  text  is  taken  from  rather  an  unusual  source.  It 
is  from  the  writings  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  in  his  book  called 
Science  and  Immortality : 

"This  is  the  lesson  science  has  to  teach  theology — to  look  for 
the  action  of  the  deity,  if  at  all,  then  always;  not  in  the  past 
alone,  nor  only  in  the  future,  but  equally  in  the  present;  if  its 
action  is  not  visible  now  it  never  will  be  and  never  has  been 
visible." 

That  is  strikingly  in  harmony  with  the  theory  we  have  been 
preaching  for  nearly  one  hundred  years:  that  we  should  not 
look  back  alone  to  the  Isle  of  Patmos  for  revelation,  or  for- 
ward to  the  pearly  gates,  but  should  look  for  the  revelation  and 
manifestation  of  God  now — as  much  as  at  any  time  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world. 

The  Apostasy 

There  is  no  question  that  Jesus  Christ  came  here  and  or- 
ganized a  church.  Well,  some  people  question  it,  but  Christ 
himself  said,  "I  will  build  my  church"  (Matthew  16:  18),  and 
it  is  very  clear  that  he  did  organize  a  church.  It  is  equally 
clear  that  following  the  death  of  the  Master  and  his  apostles 
there  presently  ensued  a  great  and  complete  apostasy.  It  had 
begun  in  the  days  of  the  apostles.  It  progressed  until  there 
was  scarcely  a  vestige  left  of  the  gospel,  and  the  church  of 
Christ  had  been  replaced  by  another.  There  is  plenty  of 
scriptural  warrant  for  this  statement.  The  prophets  predicted 
it.  I  have  not  time  to-night  to  read  the  predictions,  but  if 
anyone  here  should  be  taking  notes  he  may  refer  to  Isaiah 
24:  1-6;  Amos  8:  11,  12;  Acts  20:  28-31;  Timothy  4:  3,  4;  Rev- 


74  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

elation  12:  1-6,  and  many  others  might  be  referred  to.  The 
Apostle  Paul  says  that  for  three  years  he  ceased  not  day  or 
night  to  warn  the  people  of  the  great  apostasy  that  was  com- 
ing. 

The  fact  that  it  did  actually  occur  is  attested  by  history, 
both  ecclesiastical  and  secular.  We  have  but  to  read  the  rec- 
ord of  the  Dark  Ages  to  recognize  that  the  light  of  literature 
and  art  went  out  and  the  world  became  unspeakably  corrupt; 
and  if  such  a  thing  were  possible,  the  church  was  worse  than 
the  world.  The  church  stooped  to  sell  license  to  commit  sin  in 
the  name  of  God,  and  the  price  was  fixed  according  to  the  de- 
gree of  depravity  and  turpitude  of  the  crime.  This  sale  of 
"indulgences"  was  what  aroused  the  righteous  indignation 
of  Martin  Luther. 

That  there  was  a  great  apostasy  is  admitted  by  all  Protes- 
tant churches — otherwise  there  would  be  no  need  for  Protes- 
tant churches.  If  there  were  no  great  and  compete  apostasy, 
so  that  authority  to  represent  God  was  lost,  we  ought  all  of  us 
to  be  Catholics.  Every  Protestant  spire  that  points  towards 
heaven  is  a  testimony  that  there  was  an  apostasy — otherwise 
on  top  of  that  spire  there  would  be  a  cross  of  gold.  All  Prot- 
estants, then,  are  agreed  that  there  was  an  apostasy.  It  was 
so  complete  that  the  church  that  started  out  as  representing 
Christ  was  not  to  be  found  on  earth. 

Reformation  or  Restoration 

We  might  then  ask  ourselves :  What  was  the  way  of  recov- 
ery out  of  that  condition?  We  have  our  choice  between  two 
propositions;  that  is,  we  may  decide  which  one  appears  the 
more  logical  to  us.  We  cannot  affect  what  actually  occurred, 
but  we  can  decide  which  is  the  more  logical,  reformation  or 
restoration. 

I  think  that  I  can  put  this  up  to  you  young  people  so  you 
can  see  about  how  the  choice  lies;  and  I  believe  that  the  illus- 
tration I  use  will  find  warrant  in  scripture,  as  I  will  show  you 
a  moment  later.  Suppose  that  one  of  you  young  men  prior 
to  the  late  war  had  espoused  a  beautiful  girl  and  had  taken 
her  to  be  your  companion.  You  were  then  away  overseas  for 
a  term  of  years.  While  you  were  gone,  for  some  reason  or 
other,  conditions  became  so  unendurable  in  the  community  that 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  75 

your  bride  removed  herself  to  a  distant  place  of  hiding,  and 
in  her  absence  a  wanton,  degraded  creature  came  in  and  oc- 
cupied your  home. 

When  the  time  for  your  return  drew  near,  which  would  you 
be  for,  reformation  or  restoration?  You  would  be  all  for 
restoration.  It  would  not  satisfy  you  to  have  some  clergyman 
go  in  and  attempt  to  induce  that  creature  to  leave  off  the 
worst  of  her  ways  and  then  you  come  back  and  recognize  her 
as  your  wife.  You  would  say,  "Give  me  back  my  beautiful 
bride  that  I  have  espoused." 

John  tells  us  in  the  12th  chapter  of  Revelation  that  he  saw 
a  beautiful  woman,  which  all  agree  represented  the  church, 
clothed  in  the  glory  of  the  sun,  representing  the  authority  and 
power  of  God,  having  the  moon  under  her  feet,  and  on  her 
head  a  crown  of  twelve  stars ;  but  he  saw  there  was  a  monster 
that  made  war  against  the  woman,  and  she  fled  away  into  the 
wilderness  and  was  gone. 

In  the  17th  chapter  of  Revelation  he  says  that  in  her  place 
he  saw  a  degraded  woman,  clothed  in  scarlet  and  purple,  with  a 
cup  in  her  hand,  filled  with  iniquities,  seated  on  a  beast,  and 
written  on  her  forehead  was  "Mystery,  Babylon  the  Great, 
The  mother  of  harlots  and  abominations  of  the  earth."  This 
thing  had  come  in  and  taken  the  place  of  the  pure  church 
that  Jesus  Christ  had  left  on  earth  as  his  bride.  Now,  when 
the  time  begins  to  approach  for  him  to  come  again,  which  will 
appeal  to  him,  reformation  or  restoration? 

The  Reformation 

Let  us  take  up  for  a  brief  moment  a  consideration  of  the 
Reformation.  There  is  no  question  that  the  reformers  were 
very  brave  and 'some  of  them  very  noble  men.  They  did  a 
splendid  work  of  preparation;  but  still  it  is  true  that  there 
ensued  and  there  still  remains  endless  division  and  confusion 
upon  that  question,  and  Protestantism  to-day  seems  to  be 
doomed  to  failure.  Every  effort  to  consolidate  and  unite  ends 
in  failure. 

It  is  true,  too,  that  the  reformers  themselves  seemed,  many 
of  them,  to  look  forward  to  something  infinitely  greater  than 
they  had  been  able  to  accomplish;  and  they  did  not  claim  to 


76  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

have  revelation  or  to  be  sent  of  God  to  restore  the  ancient 
order. 

We  might  briefly  note  some  statements  made  by  some  of 
them.  For  instance,  in  a  sermon  that  John  Wesley  preached  on 
"The  signs  of  the  times,"  he  says: 

"The  signs  of  the  times  we  have  reason  to  believe  are  at 
hand,  if  they  are  not  already  begun,  are  what  many  pious 
men  have  termed  the  latter-day  glory.  .  .  .  And  yet  the  wise 
men  of  the  world,  men  of  learning  and  renown,  cannot  under- 
stand what  we  mean  by  talking  of  an  extraordinary  work  of 
God.  They  cannot  discern  the  signs  of  these  times.  They  see 
no  signs  at  all  of  God  arising  to  maintain  his  own  cause,  and 
set  up  his  kingdom  over  all  the  earth." 

Roger  Williams,  identified  with  the  pioneers  of  the  Baptist 
Church,  saidt 

"I  conceive  that  the  apostasy  of  anti-Christ  has  so  far  cor- 
rupted all  that  there  can  be  no  recovery  out  of  that  apostasy 
till  Christ  shall  send  forth  new  apostles  to  plant  churches 
anew." 

Alexander  Campbell  says: 

"Since  the  full  development  of  the  great  apostasy  foretold 
by  the  prophets  and  apostles,  numerous  attempts  at  reforma- 
tion have  been  made.  .  .  . 

"Society,  indeed,  may  be  found  among  us  far  in  advance  of 
others  in  their  progress  toward  the  ancient  order  of  things, 
but  we  know  of  none  that  have  fully  attained  to  that  model.  .  .  . 

"The  practical  result  of  all  creeds,  reformations,  and  im- 
provements and  the  expectations  and  longings  of  society  war- 
rant the  conclusion  that  some  new  revelation  or  some  n,ew  de- 
velopment of  the  revelation  of  God  must  be  made  before  the 
hopes  and  expectations  of  all  true  Christians  can  be  realized 
or  Christianity  can  save  and  reform  the  nations  of  this  world. 
We  want  the  old  gospel  back,  and  sustained  by  the  ancient  or- 
der of  things." — Christian  System. 

We  say  amen  to  these  statements.  We  do  want  the  old 
gospel  back,  sustained  by  the  ancient  order.  We  say  that 
God  has  arisen  to  maintain  his  cause,  and  has  sent  apostles 
anew. 

The  Restoration 

Let  us  consider  next  the  Restoration.  It  too  was  foretold 
in  prophecy.  Many  scriptural  references  might  be  given,  but 
time  will  not  permit  us  to  read  at  length  to-night.  We  may 


Zion  Builders'  Sernwns  77 

cite  you  to  the  one  already  quoted  from  Isaiah  29,  and  you 
will  do  well  to  read  it  all,  where  the  Lord  says: 

"Therefore,  behold,  I  will  proceed  to  do  a  marvelous  work 
among  this  people,  even  a  marvelous  work  and  a  wonder:  for 
the  wisdom  of  their  wise  men  shall  perish,  and  the  understand- 
ing of  their  prudent  men  shall  be  hid." 

The  context  shows  that  this  was  to  be  done  at  about  the 
time  when  the  Holy  Land  was  restored  to  its  fertility,  and 
about  the  time  when  a  sealed  book  (the  Book  of  Mormon) 
should  come  forth  and  be  given  to  the  world  by  an  unlearned 
man  (Joseph  Smith).  While  in  Revelation^  John  says: 

"I  saw  another  angel  flying  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  having 
the  everlasting  gospel  to  preach  unto  them  that  dwell  on  the 
earth,  and  to  every  nation,  and  kindred,  and  tongue,  and  peo- 
ple, saying  with  a  loud  voice,  Fear  God,  and  give  glory  to  him; 
for  the  hour  of  his  judgment  is  come." — Revelation  14:  6,  7. 

Why  should  it  be  necessary  for  any  angel  to  bring  the 
gospel  back  again  to  earth  in  the  hour  of  God's  judgments  if 
it  had  always  been  here,  and  why  did  the  Master  say  that 
this  gospel  should  be  preached  in  all  the  world  "for  a  wit- 
ness to  all  people,"  and  then  should  "the  end  come,"  if  it 
had  always  been  preached?  Would  it  be  any  sign  of  the 
end  when  it  went  abroad  in  the  last  days  if  it  had  been 
preached  for  centuries? 

Let  us  tell  you  the  story  of  the  Restoration:  First  we  will 
have  to  understand  to  a  degree  the  condition  of  confusion 
and  disagreement  that  existed  in  the  religious  world  in  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century.  When  I  think  about  it 
I  am  reminded  of  the  old  story  of  the  Japanese  mirror. 

According  to  the  story  there  was  a  young  Japanese  peasant 
who  went  to  the  city  for  the  first  time  in  his. life,  and  passing 
a  shop  he  looked  in  the  window  and  there  he  saw  a  mirror, 
the  first  one  he  had  ever  looked  into.  Looking  into  it,  what 
do  you  think  he  saw  ?  He  saw,  or  at  least  he  thought  he  saw, 
the  spirit  of  his  father.  He  saw  a  man  there  looking-  exactly 
as  his  father  looked  as  he  remembered  him. 

Being  very  reverent  toward  his  ancestors,  he  took  all  the 
money  he  had  and  purchased  this  mirror.  Taking  it  home  he 
climbed  up  into  the  attic  and  built  a  little  altar  and  put  the 
mirror  on  the  altar.  Every  day  he  went  up  and  made  an 


78  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

offering  and  worshiped  and  communed  with  the  spirit  of  his 
father.  Everything  would  have  gone  very  well,  only  he  was 
a  married  man,  and  his  wife,  like  a  few  women,  was  curious. 
She  wondered  why  her  husband  went  into  the  attic  every  day. 

So  one  day  when  he  was  out  in  the  field  she  laboriously 
climbed  the  ladder  and  went  into  the  attic  and  looked  into 
the  mirror.  What  did  she  see?  Why,  she  saw  a  young, 
and  as  she  thought  a  very  handsome  woman,  and  immediately 
she  said,  "The  perfidious  wretch!  I  know  now  why  he  comes 
up  here  each  day !  He  comes  here  to  meet  with  that  woman !" 

So  down  the  ladder  she  went,  and  when  the  husband  came 
home  there  was  trouble.  He  swore  he  saw  a  man  and  she 
swore  she  saw  a  woman.  So  to  settle  the  matter  they  sent 
for  a  very  old  witch  who  lived  in  the  neighborhood,  who 
climbed  the  ladder  with  many  groans,  finally  looked  into  the 
mirror,  and  came  down  and  said,  "You  are  both  fools.  It  is 
an  old,  old  woman  in  the  mirror,  and  there  is  no  cause  to  be 
jealous."  And  then  all  three  had  a  quarrel. 

Now  each  one  saw  something;  but  no  one  of  them  had  any 
toleration  for  what  the  others  saw.  If  there  had  been  some 
one  there  who  understood  the  situation, — the  man  who  made 
the  mirror,  ,for  instance, — he  could  have  put  them  in  pos- 
session of  the  absolute  truth;  but,  as  it  was,  they  went  on  with 
their  quarrel. 

So  in  these  latter  days  men  looked  into  the  mirror  of  truth, 
and  one  man  looking  into  it  said:  "I  see  absolutely  nothing 
but  predestination.  A  man  is  born  to  go  to  heaven  or  to 
hell  and  that  is  all  there  is  to  it.  He  can  do  nothing  about  it. 
I  am  a  Calvinist." 

And  another  man  looked  into  it  and  he  said,  "I  see  abso- 
lutely nothing  but  free  grace.  All  any  man  has  to  do  is  to 
believe  in  Jesus  Christ  and  he  will  be  saved." 

And  another  man  looked  into  it  and  he  said,  "I  see 
cathedrals  and  monasteries  and  altars  and  candles  and  beads 
and  monks  and  robes  and  incense  and  rites  and  pomp  and 
ceremony.  I  am  a  high  church  man." 

And  another  man  looked  into  it  and  said,  "Thou  art  mis- 
taken. I  see  no  cathedrals,  no  monks,  no  ceremonies,  no 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  79 

rites.  I  see  nothing  but  a  patient  awaiting  for  the  spirit. 
I  am  a  Quaker." 

And  so  they  quarreled.  So  it  was  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  in  the  year  1820,  when  a  great  revival 
fostered  by  leading  denominations  was  held  in  the  State  of 
New  York  in  the  vicinity  of  Palmyra.  For  a  while  all  went 
lovely  and  many  were  interested,  and  among  them  was  a 
young  man,  or  a  boy,  fifteen  years  old,  named  Joseph  Smith. 
(I  suppose  that  many  of  the  churches  wish  to  God  that  they 
had  never  held  that  revival.) 

Joseph  Smith  became  most  profoundly  interested  in  religion 
and  desired  the  salvation  of  his  soul.  But  unfortunately,  when 
the  revival  ended  it  broke  up  in  confusion  and  strife,  with  a 
quarrel  over  the  converts,  and  he  was  pulled  here  and  pulled 
there,  and  told,  "Here  is  the  truth,"  or  "There  is  the  truth," 
until  he  was  at  his  wit's  end.  But  he  happened  to  read  in 
James,  "If  any  of  you  lack  wisdom,  let  him  ask  of  God,  that 
giveth  to  all  men  liberally,  and  upbraideth  not;  and  it  shall 
be  given  him." — James  1:5. 

Not  finding  any  time  limit  on  that  promise,  he  said,  "I  will 
go  to  the  One  who  made  the  mirror  and  he  will  tell  me  the 
absolute  truth."  So  he  went  out  into  the  woods  and  kneeled 
down  and  prayed.  It  was  a  beautiful  day  early  in  the  spring, 
and  he  tells  us  that  scarcely  had  he  begun  to  pray  when  he 
was  seized  upon  by  the  power  of  darkness;  but  he  remembered 
the  reason  for  his  prayer  and  called  upon  God  to  help  him. 
Immediately  the  darkness  was  rebuked  and  removed  and  a 
great  light  shone  down  from  heaven  and  he  saw  two  per- 
sonages, and  one  of  them  said,  pointing  to  the  other,  "This 
is  my  beloved  Son;  hear  ye  him." 

That  is  the  keynote  of  all  our  message.  What  does  Jesus 
say  on  any  given  subject?  "Hear  ye  him."  And  so  in  our 
"epitome  of  faith"  we  say  that  hi  all  matter  of  controversy 
the  word  of  God  should  be  the  end  of  dispute.  If  Jesus  says, 
"Why  tarriest  thou,  arise,  and  be  baptized,  and  wash  away 
thy  sins,"  that  settles  the  matter.  If  he  says  that  he  set  in 
his  church  prophets,  apostles,  evangelists  and  teachers,  etc., 
for  us  that  is  the  end  of  the  controversy. 

Three  years  later  this  young  man  received  a  visit  from  an 


80  Zion  Builders1  Sermons 

angel  who  told  him  many  things,  among  others  that  his 
name  should  be  had  for  good  and  evil  among  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth;  that  the  time  was  coming  for  the  Jews  to  gather 
back  to  Jerusalem;  about  the  coming  forth  of  a  sealed  book; 
the  establishment  of  the  church,  and  many  other  things.  In 
1829  the  priesthood  was  restored.  April  6,  1830,  by  divine 
commandment  the  church  was  organized  and  began  its  work 
of  preaching  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Religious  Concepts  of  the  Restoration 

Before  my  time  is  gone,  I  wish  to  enter  upon  a  considera- 
tion of  some  of  the  great  religious  concepts  of  this  movement 
that  we  call  the  Restoration.  I  want  to  examine  eight  of  the 
great  religious  concepts  that  Joseph  Smith  and  his  associ- 
ates preached  to  the  world.  Every  religious  institution  is 
judged  by  its  religious  ideals  and  concepts,  and  every  religious 
leader  must  be  judged  by  the  religious  concepts  he  preaches 
to  the  world. 

Continued  Revelation 

The  first  of  these  I  wish  to  notice  is  the  idea  of  restored 
revelation.  You  can  hardly  imagine  what  a  strange  thought 
that  was,  because  the  religious  world  was  absolutely  a  unit 
on  one  thing — if  they  did  not  agree  on  anything  else,  they 
agreed  on  this  one  thing,  that  revelation  had  ceased.  They 
were  still  pointing  to  the  closing  chapters  of  Revelation,  where 
it  says  no  man  shall  add  to  the  words  of  this  book,  when 
John,  of  course,  had  only  the  book  of  Revelation  in  mind,  the 
Bible  not  being  in  existence  when  he  said  no  man  shall  add 
to  this  book;  also  no  man  may  add  to  the  revelations  of  God, 
but  God  himself  may  add  at  any  time  if  he  sees  fit. 

So  it  was  a  strange  thing  when  a  boy  came  out  of  the 
woods  where  he  had  gone  to  take  God  at  his  word  and  said, 
"I  have  had  a  revelation."  The  very  first  man  (a  minister) 
he  told  it  to  said,  "It  is  of  the  Devil.  God  doesn't  speak  any 
more!"  If  the  religious  world  had  said,  We  will  judge  that 
revelation  and  see  whether  it  is  from  God  or  the  Devil,  that 
would  have  been  a  logical  position;  but  when  they  said,  "God 
speaks  no  more  at  all,"  it  was  an  illogical  and  unscriptural 
position  to  take.  It  seems  strange  that  one  hundred  years 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  81 

later  Sir  Oliver  Lodge,  president  of  the  British  Association 
for  the  Advancement  of  Science,  should  have  to  stand  up  and 
say  to  these  gentlemen: 

"Gentlemen,  this  is  the  lesson  that  science  has  to  teach  to 
theology — to  look  for  the  action  of  the  deity,  if  at  all,  then  al- 
ways; not  in  the  past  alone,  nor  only  in  the  future,  but  equally 
in  the  present;  if  its  action  is  not  visible  now  it  never  will  be 
and  never  has  been  visible." 

The  message  of  this  young  man  was  out  of  harmony 
neither  with  science  nor  religion.  God  says,  "I  am  the  Lord, 
I  change  not." — Malachi  3:6.  He  is  in  harmony  with  the 
great  laws  of  nr.ture  that  go  on  forever  without  deviation. 
This,  then,  was  one  of  the  first  concepts  presented  to  the  world 
by  this  people — an  unchangeable  God  speaking  to  his  people 
and  blessing  them  as  of  old. 

The  Second  Advent  of  Jesus 

The  next  concept  that  I  wish  to  notice  is  the  idea  of  the 
second  coming  of  Jesus  Christ.  Latter  Day  Saints  were  told 
early,  even  before  the  organization  of  the  church,  that  there 
must  be  a  work  of  preparation  for  the  coming  of  Christ.  That 
is  why  they  sometimes  called  themselves  Latter  Day  Saints, 
and  the  church  the  Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter  Day 
Saints,  because  they  believe  that  these  are  the  latter  days, 
immediately  preceding  the  return  of  our  Lord  and  Master. 
There  were  few,  if  any,  then  who  believed  that  Christ  would 
come  again  in  person.  It  was  all  to  be  spiritual,"  and  the 
only  coming  of  Christ  that  ever  would  occur  would  be  when 
he  came  in  spirit  to  any  individual  who  wished  to  receive 
him. 

But  I  want  to  read  to  you  some  things  that  show  a  most 
striking  change  that  has  occurred  in  sentiment  since  that 
great  concept  was  presented  to  the  world  by  Joseph  Smith. 
During  the  late  war  there  was  published  what  was  called  a 
manifesto,  appearing  in  the  London  Christian  World  and 
quoted  in  the  Chicago  Herald  for  December  6,  1917.  It  was 
put  forth  by  some  of  Ahe  greatest  of  the  British  ministers, 
representing  Baptists,  Methodists,  Congregationalists,  and 
Presbyterians,  such  men  as  G.  Campbell  Morgan,  A.  C. 
Dixon,  and  others.  I  have  not  time  to  read  all  of  it,  but  this 


82  Zion  Builders1  Sermons 

manifesto,  which  attracted  world-wide  attention  at  the  time, 
says: 

"First — That  the  present  crisis  points  toward  the  close  of 
the  times  of  the  Gentiles. 

"Second — That  the  revelation  of  our  Lord  may  be  expected 
at  any  moment,  when  he  will  be  manifested  as  evidently  as  to 
his  disciples  on  the  evening  of  his  resurrection. 

"Third — That  the  completed  church  will  be  translated,  to  be 
'forever  with  the  Lord.' 

"Fourth — That  Israel  will  be  restored  to  its  own  land  in  un- 
belief, and  be  afterward  converted  by  the  appearance  of  Christ 
on  its  behalf. 

"Fifth — That  all  human  schemes  of  reconstruction  must  be 
subsidiary  to  the  second  coming  of  our  Lord,  because  all  na- 
tions will  be  subject  to  his  rule. 

"Sixth — That  under  the  reign  of  Christ  there  will  be  a  fur- 
ther great  effusion  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  all  flesh. 

"Seventh — That  the  truths  embodied  in  this  statement  are 
of  the  utmost  practical  value  in  determining  Christian  charac- 
ter and  action  with  reference  to  the  pressing  problems  of  the 
hour." 

Here  are  three  important  events  that  they  predict:  The  re- 
turn of  the  Jews;  the  soon  coming  of  Christ  in  person;  and 
the  millennial  reign.  But  what  seems  strange  to  me  is  that 
an  obscure  and  unlettered  boy  should  have  anticipated  them 
by  a  generation.  Well  did  Isaiah  say  that  "the  wisdom  of 
their  wise  men  shall  perish,  and  the  understanding  of  their 
prudent  men  shall  be  hid." 

When  the  cataclysm  came  and  war  was  poured  out  upon  all 
the  earth,  when  the  Jews  began  to  knock  at  the  gates  of 
Jerusalem  and  the  proclamation  was  about  to  go  out  from 
Great  Britain,  and  America,  and  France  that  Jerusalem 
should  be  reserved  for  a  national  home  of  the  Jews,  their 
seers  began  to  see.  How  about  the  boy  who  saw  it  in 
futurity  ? 

The  mail  to-day  brought  me  a  most  remarkable  clipping 
from  a  Des  Moines  newspaper.  There  has  been  visiting  in 
the  United  States,  Bishop  Nickolai,  of  Serbia,  who  is  said  to 
be  described  by  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  as  the  greatest 
living  church  man  in  the  world.  Last  Monday  he  lectured  in 
Des  Moines.  Here  is  the  report  of  his  lecture  taken  from  the 
Des  Moines  Evening  Tribune  for  March  14: 


Zicn  Builders'  Sermons  83 

"You  have  heard  the  history  of  the  end  of  Babylon?  of  the 
old  Greece?  of  Pompeii  and  ancient  Rome?  Well,  you  can 
read  the  signs  of  a  dying  empire  on  the  bodies  of  the  Euro- 
pean state  to-day.  ...  It  is  curious,  to-day,  to  note  how  much 
talk  there  is  of  the  world's  end  in  every  European  country. 
The  press  is  full  of  it  (shamefacedly,  but  irresistibly),  as  are 
the  mouths  of  men.  Religionists  pray  for  Christ  to  come 
again.  From  the  common  people  you  will  receive  the  direct, 
open  assurance  that  Christ  wil\  come  again,  ere  long.  It  is 
most  curious.  In  one  section,  an  interesting  state  of  mind  ex- 
ists. Conviction  that  the  Son  of  Man  will  soon  reappear  on 
earth  is  absolute.  They  say  he  is  now  'in  the  clouds/  and 
speak  of  him  as  the  'aerial  Christ.'  " 

A  Scriptural  Form  of  Doctrine 

The  late  Doctor  Talmage  said,  "I  wish  we  could  have  a 
creed  made  up  solely  of  scriptural  texts."  When  Joseph 
Smith  wanted  to  present  his  theology  to  the  world,  he  went 
directly  to  the  6th  chapter  of  Hebrews  where  Paul  names  the 
six  fundamental  principles  of  the  gospel.  Jesus  Christ  said 
that  he  sent  Paul  to  be  an  especial  vessel  to  bear  his  name 
to  the  Gentiles.  So  you  will  find  in  our  epitome  of  faith, 
this  statement:  "All  men  may  be  saved  by  obedience  to  the 
laws  and  ordinances  of  the  gospel.  We  believe  that  these 
laws  and  ordinances  are:  faith  in  God  and  in  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ;  repentance;  baptism  by  immersion  for  the  remission 
of  sins;  laying  on  of  hands  for  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
.  .  .  resurrection  of  the  body  .  .  .  eternal  judgment."  The 
six  principles  named  by  Paul. 

It  seems  a  little  strange  to  me  that  of  all  the  church 
builders  no  one  thought  to  adopt  this  particular  statement  of 
faith  which  is  easily  defensible  by  the  Scriptures  and  so 
absolutely  adequate  to  all  human  needs,  because  it  takes  a 
man  at  the  very  moment  when  faith  comes  into  the  heart  at 
his  mother's  knee  or  under  the  sound  of  the  preacher's  voice, 
on  through  the  ashes  of  repentance  and  the  waters  of  baptism 
and  regeneration  and  the  spiritual  birth,  to  the  resurrection 
and  eternal  judgment,  and  so  into  the  presence  of  God 
himself. 

The  Scriptural  Organization 

The  next  great  concept  was  that  of  a  scriptural  form  of 
organization.  We  are  told  in  1  Corinthians  12:  28  that  "God 


84  Zion  Builders*  Sermons 

hath  set  some  in  the  church,  first  apostles,  secondarily 
prophets,  thirdly  teachers." 

If  God  set  apostles  and  prophets  in  the  church,  who  had 
the  right  to  take  them  out?  And  we  are  told  in  Ephesians 
4:  11-13,  that  Christ  "gave  some,  apostles;  and  some, 
prophets;  and  some,  evangelists;  and  some,  pastors  and  teach- 
ers; for  the  perfecting  of  the  saints,  for  the  work  of  the 
ministry,  for  the  edifying  of  the  body  of  Christ;  till  we  all 
come  in  the  unity  of  the  faith." 

We  haven't  yet  become  perfect  or  reached  unity,  and  the 
work  of  the  ministry  is  not  done. 

Well,  some  one  may  say,  "Why,  sure,  we  have  apostles 
and  prophets  in  our  church." 

"Where  are  they?" 

"Why,  Paul  and  John  and  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah.  We  have 
them;  they  are  right  here  in  the  Bible." 

But  as  Danny  Williams  says,  "They  are  dead."  Why  do 
you  draw  a  line  between  apostles  and  pastors?  God  set 
both  in  the  church.  You  are  satisfied  with  dead  apostles, 
but  you  want  live  pastors.  You  are  not  satisfied  with  a  dead 
pastor.  You  don't  have  to  take  up  a  collection  for  Peter  and 
John;  yet  you  say  that  you  want  a  live  pastor.  Well,  we  are 
just  like  you,  only  more  so.  We  want  live  apostles.  Some- 
where this  young  man  got  the  great  religious  concept  of  a 
church  organized  on  the  divine  pattern  with  all  the  officers 
of  the  New  Testament  church — and  behold,  it  was  ac- 
complished. 

A  Return  of  the  Gifts  and  Blessings 

The  next  great  concept  was  that  of  the  return  of  the  gos- 
pel gifts  and  blessings  such  as  you  will  find  in  Mark  16:16- 
18  and  1  Corinthians  12:  7-11;  the  gift  of  wisdom,  of  faith, 
of  prophecy,  of  speaking  in  tongues,  of  miracles,  of  healing 
of  the  sick,  and  so  on;  and  I  suppose  that  if  I  were  to  call 
upon  witnesses  here  in  this  audience,  seventy-five  per  cent 
of  the  audience  would  testify  that  they  had  either  seen  or 
experienced  personally  to  their  satisfaction  and  conviction 
some  of  these  great  spiritual  blessings  that  the  apostles 
enjoyed  of  old* 


Zwn  Builders'  Sermons  85 


A  Restored  Priesthood 

The  next  concept  we  notice  was  that  of  a  restored  priest- 
hood. Absolutely  without  doubt  Jesus  had  an  ordained  priest- 
hood, and  a  man  not  ordained  had  no  right  to  go  out  and 
represent  him.  This  went  on  until  the  apostasy  set  in.  But 
if  I  try  to  trace  my  priesthood  back  to-day  and  say  I  was  or- 
dained by  so-and-so  and  trace  it  back  and  back  and  back,  shall 
I  be  satisfied  if  it  ends  with  the  Church  of  Rome  and  the 
Vatican?  Certainly  not.  Others  may  if  they  wish. 

Jesus  says,  "Ye  have  not  chosen  me,  but  I  have  chosen  you 
and  ordained  you." — John  15:  16.  We  stand  for  a  restored 
priesthood.  A  man  cannot  get  a  seat  in  the  Senate  by  read- 
ing the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and  he  cannot  get 
the  right  to  administer  in  gospel  ordinances  by  reading  the 
Bible.  He  must  be  called  and  must  be  ordained.  Priesthood 
was  restored.  We  do  not  trace  our  authority  back  to  Rome. 

The  Book  of  Mormon 

Another  religious  concept  was  that  of  the  Book  of  Mor- 
mon, strangely  misunderstood.  Ingersoll  said  on  one 
occasion  that  the  Christian  God  was  ignorant  of  the  existence 
of  America  until  Columbus  told  him  of  it.  I  wonder  if  that 
was  true.  One  half  of  the  world  he  blessed,  centuries  on  end, 
with  revelation  and  with  blessings  and  with  his  Bible  and  with 
his  law.  What  was  he  doing  for  the  other  half? 

Archeology  shows  us  that  civilization  was  extremely 
ancient  in  both  North  and  South  America.  Was  God  one 
sided?  Could  he  see  only  half  the  earth?  Or  was  he 
partial?  Did  Ingersoll  tell  the  truth?  The  Book  of  Mormon 
comes  and  gives  us  the  history  of  the  people  who  lived  on  the 
Amercan  Continent.  It  makes  another  witness,  and  it  shows 
that  God  was  not  partial  but  that  he  was  blessing-  the  people 
here  even  as  he  did  in  the  Old  World. , 

Zionic  Ideals 

Last  of  all  we  come  to  what  we  might  term,  Our  Zionic 
Ideals — the  eighth  and  last  of  the  ideals  or  religious  con- 
cepts we  have  noted — the  idea  of  a  Zion.  Jesus  Christ  said 
that  prior  to  his  Doming  there  should  be  war  and  pestilence 
and  famines  poured  out  on  all  the  earth;  and  he  told  his  dis- 


86  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


ciples,  as  you  will  find  in  Luke  21 :  36,  that  they  should  pray 
that  when  that  time  came,  they  might  "escape"  from  those 
things.  Escape  where?  The  answer  is,  In  Zion,  the  city  of 
refuge. 

But  there  is  something  that  is  infinitely  more  interesting 
than  the  mere  idea  of  safety.  The  social  theories  of  Jesus 
Christ  have  never  been  worked  out  in  any  community.  I 
mean  any  modern  community.  Individuals  have  shaped  their 
lives  after  the  divine  pattern  to  a  certain  extent;  but  there 
is  not  a  community  anywhere  under  the  shining  sun,  and 
has  not  been  in  modem  history,  where  the  social  ideas  of 
Jesus  Christ  have  been  fully  worked  out.  Men  have  empha- 
sized the  fatherhood  of  God,  but  they  certainly  have  not 
emphasized  in  practice  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

Jesus  Christ  calls  for  brotherhood;  and  one  of  the  ideals 
that  this  church  had  from  the  very  beginning  was  to  build 
a  community  where  the  brotherhood  of  man  would  prevail.  I 
don't  suppose  the  world  would  believe  it;  but  that  was  the 
secret  of  all  their  efforts  in  gathering  at  Nauvoo,  and  Inde- 
pendence, and  in  Kirtland.  The  church  was  not  a  year  old 
until  the  Lord  told  them  to  begin  to  gather  and  to  try  to 
work  out  a  community  in  which  there  would  be  neither  rich 
nor  poor,  but  where  all  would  be  equal  and  all  be  true 
servants  of  God.  A  people  was  to  be  prepared.  There  was  to 
be  a  place  prepared  for  the  coming  of  Christ. 

The  aim  of  that  gathering  is  brotherhood.  The  principles 
involved  are  love  and  consecration  and  stewardship  and 
justice  and  equality  in  temporal  things  as  well  as  in  spiritual 
things.  The  results  will  be  blessing  and  joy  and  power. 

I  am  glad  that  we  had  this  very  high  ideal.  Some  people 
think  that  idealists  are  crazy;  that  they  cannot  be  trusted. 
When  you  find  a  sane  idealist,  you  have  the  sanest  man  on 
earth,  because  he  does  not  stake  his  destiny  on  a  passing 
moment,  but  he  looks  to  the  eternal  future.  Jesus  Christ  was 
an  idealist.  For  his  ideals  he  went  without  a  home.  He  wore 
one  single  garment.  He  ate  the  wheat  out  of  the  field.  For 
his  ideals  he  suffered  stripes.  He  let  men  spit  upon  him. 
He  wore  the  thorny  crown.  He  hung  upon  the  cross.  I  am 
glad  that  we  have  an  ideal.  If  the  world  tells  us  that  it 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  87 

cannot  be  worked  out,  Jesus  Christ  says  it  can.  He  died 
for  it. 

Galileo  was  an  idealist  who  saw  the  lamp  in  the  cathedral 
swinging  to  and  fro,  as  you  see  yonder  lamp  swinging,  and 
he  had  a  picture  of  the  earth  revolving  on  its  axis.  He  stood 
up  and  said,  "The  earth  moves."  The  ecclesiastics  said,  "You 
are  mistaken."  And  they  made  him  recant,  but  when  he  got 
up  from  his  knees,  he  said  under  his  breath,  "It  does  move," 
and  to-day  everyone  knows  that  he  was  right. 

Columbus  was  an  idealist  who  dreamed  of  a  new  earth  and 
struck  out  over  uncharted  waters  to  discover  America. 

John  Brown  was  an  idealist,  a  hair-brained  idealist  who 
dreamed  of  a  free  negro.  He  went  to  Harper's  Ferry  and 
died.  All  men  said,  What  folly!  But  in  a  few  years  there 
were  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  marching 
and  they  were  singing,  "John  Brown's  body  lies  a-moldering 
in  the  grave,  but  his  soul  goes  marching  on." 

The  fathers  of  this  country  were  idealists  who  founded  a 
republic  on  the  principles  of  democracy  that  had  never  been 
tried  out,  and  staked  their  all  on  the  ideal  of  political,  re- 
ligious, and  intellectual  liberty. 

We  are  idealists  who  have  a  vision  of  Zion.  Young  people, 
you  have  something  to  live  for.  You  have  something  to  work 
for.  You  have  termed  yourselves  Zion  Builders.  You  have 
an  ideal  that  is  worthy  of  the  ambition  of  any  true  man  or 
woman.  It  calls  first  for  personal,  individual  regeneration 
and  for  individual  preparation;  and  in  the  last  analysis  it 
calls  for  group  cooperation  and  righteousness  and  the  build- 
ing up  a  society  that  need  not  be  ashamed  when  Jesus  Christ 
comes. 

Whence  Came  These  Concepts? 

I  wonder  where  an  ignorant  boy  like  Joseph  Smith  got 
these  great  religious  concepts.  How  do  you  answer  that 
question?  The  world  tries  to  answer  by  burying  him  under 
slander  so  deep  that  they  hope  he  can  never  emerge.  They 
may  bury  him;  but  the  great  religious  concepts  that  he  taught 
rise  up  like  giants  amid  the  ruins  of  old  creeds  and  outgrown 
theologies  that  have  fallen  by  the  way. 

We  answer  that  question  by  saying  that  he  did  not  get 


88  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

these  concepts  from  his  own  wisdom,  but  that  God  gave  them 
to  him,  as  he  said,  "Behold  I  will  proceed  to  do  a  marvelous 
work  among  this  people,  even  a  marvelous  work  and  a 
wonder:  for  the  wisdom  of  their  wise  men  shall  perish,  and 
the  understanding  of  their  prudent  men  shall  be  hid." 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  89 


Our  Spiritual  Inheritance 

Sermon  by  Elbert  A.  Smith  in  Zion  Builder 
Series,  Lamoni,  Iowa.  Reported  by  Winsome 
Smith  McDonald 

"Paul,  an  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ  by  the  will  of  God,  accord- 
ing to  the  promise  of  life  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus.  To  Timo- 
thy, my  dearly  beloved  son:  Grace,  mercy,  and  peace,  from 
God  the  Father  and  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.  I  thank  God, 
whom  I  serve  from  my  forefathers  with  pure  conscience,  that 
without  ceasing  I  have  remembrance  of  thee  in  my  prayers 
night  and  clay;  greatly  desiring  to  see  thee,  being  mindful  of 
thy  tears,  that  I  may  be  filled  with  joy;  when  I  call  to  re- 
membrance the  unfeigned  faith  that  is  in  thee,  which  dwelt 
first  in  thy  grandmother  Lois,  and  thy  mother  Eunice;  and  I 
am  persuaded  that  in  thee  also.  Wherefore  I  put  thee  in  re- 
membrance that  thou  stir  up  the  gift  of  God,  which  is  in  thee 
by  the  putting  on  of  my  hands.  For  God  hath  not  given  us 
the  spirit  of  fear;  but  of  power,  and  of  love,  and  of  a  sound 
mind.  Be  not  thou  therefore  ashamed  of  the  testimony  of  our 
Lord  nor  of  me  his  prisoner:  but  be  thou  partaker  of  the  af- 
flictions of  the  gospel  according  to  the  power  of  God;  who 
hath  saved  us,  and  called  us  with  an  holy  calling,  not  accord- 
ing to  our  works,  but  according  to  his  own  purpose  and  grace, 
which  was  given  us  in  Christ  Jesus  before  the  world  began. 
But  is  now  made  manifest  by  the  appearing  of  our  Savior 
Jesus  Christ,  who  hath  abolished  death,  and  hath  brought  life 
and  immortality  to  light  through  the  gospel." 

I  have  read  the  first  ten  verses  of  the  first  chapter  of  the 
second  epistle  of  Paul  to  Timothy.  And  in  connection  with 
that  wish  to  use  this,  "The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with 
our  spirit,  that  we  are  the  children  of  God:  and  if  children, 
then  heirs;  heirs  of  God,  and  joint  heirs  with  Christ;  if  so  be 
that  we  suffer  with  him." — Rome  8:  16,  17. 

Importance  of  Material  Inheritances 

The  importance  of  material  inheritances  has  long  claimed 
the  attention  of  humanity.  They  are  considered  so  very  im- 
portant that  a  great  deal  of  our  litigation  is  taken  up  with 
the  question  of  the  passage  of  material  property.  Many 
family  quarrels  result  over  the  division  of  inherited  property. 


90  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

The  matter  of  inheritance  is  directed  by  many  and  very 
ancient  laws.  The  English  laws  go  into  great  particulars; 
so  did  the  Roman  laws,  and  even  in  the  most  remote  antiquity 
men  had  laws  and  rules  governing  the  passage  of  property 
from  father  to  son. 

These  things  are  important,  yet  we  are  reminded  that  all 
material  inheritances  are  ephemeral.  They  are  subject  to 
decay,  and  the  proverbial  moth  and  rust,  and  thieves  that 
break  in  and  steal;  they  are  subject  to  fire  and  destruction, 
and  if  not  so  subject  they  are  at  least  subject  to  alienation. 
Hundreds  of  men  who  were  wealthy  a  year  ago  are  poor 
to-day  because  there  has  come  a  change  in  values. 

These  things  are  also  of  an  external  character;  they  are 
attached  to  the  man:  money  to  put  in  his  pocket,  a  coat  for 
his  back,  land  under  his  feet,  and  a  roof  over  his  head — very 
important  things  but  no  part  of  the  man  himself;  kept  only 
by  deed  and  aid  of  police. 

Spiritual  Inheritances 

But  our  spiritual  inheritances  have  to  do  with  things  that 
are  eternal,  that  do  not  change:  thoughts,  doctrines,  ideals, 
principles  which  are  true  and  the  same  yesterday,  to-day, 
and  forever.  And  no  man  can  take  them  from  us,  because 
our  spiritual  inheritance  is  a  part  of  ourselves,  a  part  of  the 
soul. 

The  Apostle  Paul  took  his  inheritance  to  jail  with  him,  and 
it  made  him  so  happy  that  at  midnight  cin  bonds  he  and  Silas 
sang  hymns  and  rejoiced.  Bunyan  took  his  inheritance  to 
jail  with  him  and  wrote  Pilgrim's  Progress.  The  Puritan 
fathers  brought  their  inheritance  to  America  with  them. 
They  could  not  bring  very  much  in  the  little  sailing  vessels 
at  their  command,  some  clothing,  some  seeds,  a  little  food, 
some  weapons,  some  tools;  but  they  brought  another  cargo,  a 
spiritual  inheritance  with  them  adequate  for  a  great  nation 
for  hundreds  of  years. 

Inheritance  of  Nations 

The  spiritual  inheritance  of  nations  seems  to  be  the  pre- 
dominating thing  in  governing  their  destiny,  and  each  has 
its  own  particular  inheritance.  France  has  her  literature, 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  91 

her  art,  her  political  ideals  that  have  come  down  from  the 
revolution,  and  many  other  things  that  distinguish  her  from 
all  other  nations.  There  is  only  one  France  and  it  is  not  her 
geographical  lines  that  most  distinguish  her  from  all  other 
nations. 

Great  Britain  has  her  inheritance  of  law  and  order  and 
ideals  of  human  liberty  that  distinguishes  her  wherever  she 
plants  her  colonies.  For  centuries  she  wrested  privileges  from 
the  crown  and  handed  them  to  the  people. 

Germany  had  her  special  spiritual  inheritance.  She  had 
her  ideals  of  unremitting  industry,  of  stolid  endurance,  of 
frugality,  of  extreme  thoroughness,  which  made  her  very 
great  in  the  industrial  world,  almost  supreme  in  the  scien- 
tific world,  and  very  terrible  in  war;  but  her  inheritance  was 
mixed,  and  added  to  it  were  the  theories  that  came  down 
fom  the  Hohenzollerns  and  her  war  lords  and  military 
essayists  that  brought  in  their  train  ruin  for  the  nation. 

America  has  a  spiritual  inheritance  that  differs  from  all 
other  nations.  We  draw,  it  is  true,  from  the  religious  re- 
formers of  Germany,  from  the  political  reformers  of  France, 
from  the  great  ideals  of  our  British  forefathers,  but  also  it 
was  said  in  the  blessing  pronounced  on  Joseph's  land  in  the 
book  of  Deuteronomy  that  Joseph's  land  should  inherit  the 
"good  will  of  him  that  dwelt  in  the  bush."  (Deuteronomy 
33:  16.)  We  understand  that  to  mean  the  good  will  of  the 
God  who  was  revealed  to  Moses  in  the  burning  bush.  When 
the  delegates  came  together  in  Philadelphia  on  that  memo- 
rable occasion  to  draft  the  Federal  Constitution,  there  was  an 
unseen  delegate  who  did  not  represent  any  colony;  and  George 
Washington  did  well  when  he  said  on  the  opening  day,  "The 
event  is  in  the  hands  of  God." 

Inheritance  of  Families 

Then  there  is  a  spiritual  inheritance  of  family;  and  fre- 
quently the  thing  that  distinguishes  a  family  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  is  the  ideals  handed  down  from  father  to 
son,  or  from  father  and  mother  to  the  children,  distinguishing 
the  family  infinitely  more  than  anything  inherited  in  the  way 
of  houses  or  lots  or  money. 

Perhaps  the  most  extraordinary  illustration  of  that  kind 


92  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


is  found  in  the  case  of  the  family  of  Abraham  who  was  com- 
manded to  go  from  his  own  country  and  land  into  another 
country  where  God  said  he  would  give  him  his  inheritance. 
In  that  country  he  received  land  that  was  infinitely  small 
compared  with  the  territory  of  the  United  States;  but  God 
gave  him  another  inheritance,  spiritual,  invisible,  an  inheri- 
tance of  law,  literature,  and  religion,  that  has  been  of  the 
most  tremendous  importance  in  shaping  the  history  of  the 
world. 

The  fundamentals  of  all  civil  law  are  contained  in  the  law 
Moses  gave.  The  literature  that  came  through  the  children 
of  Israel  as  we  have  it  compiled  in  the  Bible  has  influenced 
humanity  perhaps  more  than  anything  else  ever  written.  The 
religious  ideals,  beginning  with  the  great  proclamation  of 
the  ideal  of  one  great  God,  creator  of  all  men,  the  great  I 
AM,  that  came  through  Moses  and  continued  on  through  the 
greater  revelation  of  Jesus  Christ,  another  Israelite,  the  son 
of  David — these  things  constituted  the  inheritance  of  father 
Abraham's  family.  They  were  not  given  to  him  simply  be- 
cause he  was  a  favorite,  but  that  through  him  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  might  be  blessed;  and  to-day  all  are  indebted  to 
that  people. 

The  Source  of  Inheritance 

We  might  ask  ourselves  the  source  of  our  spiritual  inheri- 
tance. Of  course  it  occurs  to  our  minds  immediately  that 
there  are  different  sources,  according  to  the  nature  of  the 
inheritances.  Jesus  said  to  the  Pharisees,  "Ye  are  of  your 
father,  the  Devil,  who  was  a  murderer  from  the  beginning." 
— John  8:  44.  That  is  the  source  of  the  inheritance  of  any 
man  who  deals  in  hypocrisy  and  deceit;  but  on  the  other 
hand,  in  the  text  I  have  read  to  you  this  evening  we  are  told, 
"The  Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit,  that  we 
are  the  children  of  God;  and  if  children,  then  heirs;  and  joint 
heirs  with  Jesus  Christ." — Romans  8: 16,  17.  Also,  "Every 
good  gift  and  every  perfect  gift  is  from  above,  and  cometh 
down  from  the  Father  of  lights,  with  whom  is  no  variable- 
ness, neither  shadow  of  turning." — James  1:  17. 

So  we  must  remember  that  all  good  things  that  come  to  us 
as  Latter  Day  Saints  come  from  God.  Yet  it  is  true  that 


Zion  Builders1  Sermons 


they  come  to  us  in  many  instances  by  way  of  our  fathers  and 
mothers.  You  will  notice  that  according  to  the  scriptural 
reading  of  the  evening  in  the  year  65  A.  D.  the  gospel  of 
Jesus  Christ  had  already  passed  down  through  three  genera- 
tions, from  Lois  the  grandmother,  to  Eunice  the  mother,  and 
then  to  Timothy,  the  young  man;  and  no  man  can  tell  now 
how  much  of  this  was  due  to  the  love  and  prayers  and  the 
godly  life  of  Lois  the  grandmother  and  Eunice  the  mother. 

Timothy  was  a  fortunate  man  to  have  two  good  women 
back  of  him;  and  if  to-night,  young  man,  there  is  a  mother 
somewhere  praying  for  you,  and  perhaps  a  godly  grand- 
mother as  well,  you  cannot  afford  to  ignore  the  spiritual  in- 
heritance that  passes  down  to  you  in  connection  with  their 
prayers  and  their  example. 

I  do  not  know  whether  Timothy's  father  was  like  the  man 
whose  little  boy  said  he  was  sure  "papa  would  never  go  to 
heaven  because  he  couldn't  leave  his  business  long  enough." 
Timothy's  father  is  not  mentioned  in  this  connection  at  all, 
but  many  of  us  as  Latter  Day  Saints  realize  there  is  a 
spiritual  inheritance  that  comes  to  us  from  our  fathers  as 
well  as  our  mothers.  It  is  even  to-day  as  it  was  in  days 
gone  by,  and  if  you  were  to  call  a  roll  of  names  in  the  church 
that  continue  on  the  records  of  the  church  from  generation 
+o  generation  you  would  be  surprised  at  the  number  of  them 
that  are  familiar  in  your  mouths — where  for  generations  the 
gospel  has  come  down  from  father  to  son.  In  almost  any 
congregation  you  will  find  a  large  percentage  of  people  of 
that  kind  who  have  thus  received  the  gospel  as  their  spiritual 
inheritance.  I  wonder  to-night  how  many  there  are  here 
who  have  a  father  or  a  mother  or  grandparents  who  loved 
the  gospel  before  them.  I  would  like  to  see  your  hands. 
[Many  hands  were  raised.]  I  see  there  are  many  of  you;  and 
those  of  you  who  have  received  the  gospel,  whose  fathers  did 
not  receive  it,  have  this  consolation — possibly  you  may  start 
a  line  that  will  run  for  generations  to  come  as  servants  of 
God. 

I  preached  at  one  time  in  the  city  of  Nauvoo,  and  at  the, 
close  of  the  meeting  an  old  man  came  to  me  and  said,  "You 
are  the  fourth  generation  I  have  heard  preach  here  in  the 
city  of  Nauvoo,  and  you  have  all  preached  the  same  gospel. 


94  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


I  heard  you,  I  heard  your  father,  David,  your  grandfather, 
Joseph  the  Martyr,  and  your  great-grandfather,  Joseph  the 
patriarch." 

Some  people  say  that  Joseph  Smith  started  the  church  and 
kept  it  going  that  he  might  exploit  it  and  grow  rich.  Do 
you  know  what  Joseph  Smith  got  out  of  it?  I  will  tell  you. 
He  got  out  of  it  the  undying  hatred  of  many  people.  He  got 
an  assassin's  bullet  in  his  heart.  He  got  six  feet  of  ground 
in  an  unmarked  grave  on  a  hillside  overlooking  the  Mississippi 
— unmarked  by  monument  in  any  way,  and  only  perhaps  a 
dozen  men  know  its  exact  location,  because  even  yet  some  one 
might  desecrate  that  grave  if  its  exact  location  were  revealed. 

What  did  my  father  have  to  leave  me?  A  lot  in  the  city 
of  Nauvoo  that  I  had  to  redeem  because  it  had  been  sold  for 
taxes.  What  have  I  to  leave  to  my  children?  An  equity  in 
a  cottage — if  we  get  it  all  paid  for;  and  the  chance  to  borrow 
money  to  take  them  through  college.  But  I  am  not  com- 
plaining; most  missionaries'  sons  have  to  do  that,  and  I  have 
never  wished  to  use  my  influence  to  get  anything  I  did  not 
wish  the  missionaries  to  have. 

No,  there  is  something  else  that  has  held  the  family  to  the 
church.  There  is  something  else  that  holds  you  to  it.  I  want 
to  tell  you  for  a  moment  to-night  my  own  personal  experi- 
ence. They  say  that  personal  testimony  has  a  place  in 
preaching.  My  father's  activity  in  the  church  came  to  what 
seemed  to  be  an  untimely  and  tragic  end  early  in  life;  and 
when  I  was  five  years  old  my  mother  and  I  were  thrown  upon 
our  own  resources.  The  church  never  gave  us  a  dollar  to 
live  on,  or  a  dollar  for  my  education,  because  it  did  not  have 
money  to  give  at  that  time.  We  were  compelled  to  go  to  a 
place  where  there  was  no  branch,  no  Sunday  school,  no  prayer 
meetings,  no  preaching,  and  in  that  environment  I  grew  up. 
Not  one  of  my  younger  early  associates  ever  gave  a  rap  for 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  as  we  believe  it.  But  there  was 
something  that  followed  -me.  There  was  a  spiritual  inher- 
itance. I  did  not  have  much  that  my  father  left  me.  I  had 
the  Bible  he  preached  from,  the  hymn  book  he  sang  from, 
some  of  the  songs  he  wrote,  some  of  his  manuscript  poems, 
some  of  his  paintings;  and  those  things  I  pondered,  also  my 
mother's  teachings. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  95 


But  that  is  not  what  I  started  to  tell  you.  Early  in  my 
life,  T  could  not  have  been  more  than  six  year?  old,  I  had  a 
strange  experience.  I  remember  the  circumstance.  I  stood 
on  the  open  virgin  prairie  sod  where  apparently  no  man 
had  ever  plowed  or  sown  since  the  dawn  of  time,  with  the 
sun  shining  on  the  green  grass  and  all  around  me  the  sweet 
Williams  and  phlox,  and  other  wild  flowers.  Perhaps  those 
flowers  helped  fix  it  in  my  mind,  because  I  always  loved  flow- 
ers, especially  wild  flowers.  Standing  there,  just  a  little  boy, 
there  cdhne  into  my  mind  the  most  -vivid  conviction  imagi- 
nable that  when  I  grew  to  manhood  it  would  fall  to  my  lot  to 
take  up  my  father's  work  where  he  laid  it  down  and  carry  it 
on.  That  conviction  and  that  feeling  never  left  my  heart, 
never. 

As  the  years  passed  by,  there  came  a  time  when  I  found 
myself  seated  at  the  editorial  desk  in  the  Herald  Office  as 
associate  editor  of  the  SAINTS'  HERALD,  with  Brother  Joseph 
Smith.  More  than  thirty  years  before  that  time  my  -father 
sat  at  the  editorial  desk  in  Piano  in  exactly  the  same  posi- 
tion. There  came  a  time  when  one  evening  in  the  council 
chamber  I  found  myself  associated  in  the  First  Presidency 
as  counselor  to  Joseph  Smith.  He  had  already  become  blind, 
and  the  thing  that  touched  me  most  that  first  evening  was 
that  every  few  moments  he  would  reach  out  his  hand  and  put 
it  on  my  knee  as  though  to  be  sure  I  was  there.  Thirty 
years  before  my  father  sat  in  the  same  position. 

You  need  not  tell  me  God  does  not  foreshadow  to  us  our 
work.  I  have  never  been  called  upon  to  do  an  important 
work  that  it  has  not  been  foreshadowed  to  me  by  spiritual 
inspiration;  and  I  am  positive  that  there  are  young  people 
here  who  have  received  a  similar  conviction  that  in  days  to 
come  God  has  a  work  for  them  to  do.  Those  who  will  heed 
that  conviction  and  prepare  themselves  will  find  but  happi- 
ness and  joy. 

Do  I  regret  the  spiritual  inheritance  that  came  to  me? 
Never  for  a  single  moment.  I  would  rather  come  here  and 
preach  these  sermons  for  you  at  your  invitation  and  have 
part  in  these  services  than  to  own  all  of  Decatur  County. 
This  means  infinitely  more  to  me,  because  I  am  helping  to 
educate  souls  for  eternity. 


96  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


Our  Latter  Day  Saint  Inheritances 

Now  what  is  our  inheritance  as  Latter  Day  Saints?  We 
are  heirs  of  "the  great  Restoration."  I  dwelt  on  that  Friday 
night.  I  do  not  need  to  speak  on  it  to-night. 

We  are  heirs  to  a  system  of  splendid  moral  principles.  I 
know  some  people  won't  believe  that;  but  let  me  tell  you,  the 
church  must  not  be  judged  at  all  by  the  heresies  introduced 
in  Utah.  This  church  from  its  beginning  has  had  the  clean- 
est of  moral  principles. 

Men  were  taught  the  purity  of  family  life,  "Th*ou  shalt 
love  thy  wife  with  all  thy  heart  and  shall  cleave  unto  her 
and  none  else." — Doctrine  and  Covenants. 

Men  were  taught  to  be  temperate.  "Strong  drink  is  not 
for  man,"  the  Book  of  Covenants  says.  Long  years  before 
prohibition  was  dreamed  of  by  most  other  people,  our  church 
had  prohibitory  laws.  In  the  early  thirties,  in  Kirtland,  Ohio, 
and  in  Far  West,  Missouri,  and  in  the  early  forties  in  Nauvoo, 
Illinois — in  all  three  of  these  places  the  church  had  laws 
absolutely  prohibiting  the  sale  of  intoxicating  liquor,  while 
at  that  time  ministers  of  popular  churches  were  indulging  in 
the  social  glass  without  shame. 

Our  people  were  early  taught  they  should  be  industrious: 
The  idler  shall  not  eat  the  bread  of  the  laborer,"  the  Book 
of  Covenants  says. 

Our  people  were  taught  to  be  law  abiding:  "He  that  keep- 
eth  the  laws  of  God  hath  no  need  to  break  the  laws  of  the 
land." — Doctrine  and  Covenants. 

Our  people  were  taught  to  be  studious.  I  know  there  has 
been  a  great  deal  of  misunderstanding  in  the  world  and  in 
the  church  as  to  our  attitude  on  the  question  of  education, 
but  let  me  tell  you  that  wherever  the  church  went  in  its 
early  days  in  Kirtland  and  Far  West  and  Nauvoo,  the  first 
thing  they  did  was  to  establish  schools.  The  Nauvoo  Uni- 
versity was  just  getting  on  its  feet  when  Joseph  and  Hyrum 
were  killed.  To-day  we  have  in  Independence  the  Institute  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  struggling  along;  and  here  in  Lamoni  we 
have  Graceland  College,  and  you  are  grateful  for  it. 

We  have  inherited  something  more  than  a  system  of 
morals.  We  have  inherited  the  pure  doctrines  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Moral  teachings  are  not  enough;  they  are  not  ade- 


ft 

Zion  Builders'  Sermons  97 

quate.  Most  men  find  themselves  sooner  or  later  enmeshed 
in  sin.  They  are  compelled  to  say,  "I  would  like  to  do  good 
but  I  cannot."  I  believe  many  in  the  world  are  exactly  in 
that  condition  to-day.  Men  have  their  moments  of  aspira- 
tion, when  the  good  in  them  rises  up  and  they  want  to  be 
that  which  they  are  called  to  be  but  they  cannot.  God  must 
reach  down  and  take  man  by  the  hand  and  cause  him  to 
stand.  He  did  it  in  the  person  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  instru- 
ment Jesus  uses  is  the  gospel — "it  is  the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation." 

Systems  of  morals  and  ethics  are  no  more  adequate  to  the 
needs  of  the  world  to-day  than  talcum  powder  is  equal  to  the 
cure  of  cancer.  The  work  of  the  missionary  is  the  preaching 
of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ.  I  am  very  glad  of  these  re- 
vival services,  and  that  the  young  people  are  taking  an  in- 
terest in  the  fundamental  princip^s.  While  I  have  stood  for 
education,  I  have  feared  at  times  that  some  of  our  young 
elders  would  go  out  with  the  idea  that  it  was  their  business 
to  preach  sociology,  psychology,  philosophy,  whatnot,  instead 
of  the  powers  and  principles  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ 
that  go  to  the  root  of  the  situation,  the  regeneration  of  man. 
It  is  our  work  to  preach  these  principles,  and  I  am  pro- 
foundly glad  to  see  how  pleased  the  young  people  are  to 
hear  them. 

We  are  heirs  of  the  primitive  New  Testament  church  or- 
ganization. We  are  heirs  of  the  ancient  gifts  of  the  gospel 
with  the  power  that  accompanied  them.  I  thought  that 
preacher  in  Independence  said  well  when  he  said,  "I  have 
been  attending  the  meetings  at  the  Stone  Church,  and  the 
rest  of  us  people  have  got  to  wake  up  because  there  is  a 
power  with  that  church,  and  they  are  holding  their  young 
people."  The  greatest  power  with  the  church,  aside  from 
the  logical  appeal  of  the  gospel,  is  the  Spirit  of  God  that 
comes  into  the  hearts  of  the  people.  Why,  haven't  I  seen 
young  men,  many  of  whom  were  naturally  atheistic?  They 
were  skeptical  from  the  ground  up,  and  as  they  went  through 
the  colleges  and  universities,  they  whetted  their  wit  on  the 
hone  of  logic;  and  they  built  for  themselves  an  armor  of 
unbelief  that  you  could  not  break  with  a  sledge  hammer.  But 
one  day  when  they  sat  in  a  prayer  service,  Jesus  Christ  stood 


98  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

and  looked  at  them,  an  unseen  presence,  and  their  carefully 
built  armor  fell  away,  and  they  said,  "Lord,  it  is  enough;  I 
believe;  help  thou  my  unbelief."  Have  I  not  seen  that  thing? 
And  so  have  you.  Perhaps  some  of  you  have  experienced  it 
as  well. 

Did  you  notice  Paul's  statement  of  the  things  that  have 
come  to  us?  He  says  we  have  not  been  baptized  by  the 
spirit  of  fear.  You  haven't  heard  me  preaching  the  terrors 
of  hell  in  order  to  drive  you  people  into  the  church.  You 
never  do  hear  our  people  preach  that.  He  has  not  "baptized 
us  with  the  spirit  of  fear,  but  of  power,  and  of  love,  and  of 
a  sound  mind."  (2  Timothy  1:7.) 

There  is  another  thing,  however,  that  Paul  mentions  here. 
He  says  something  about  our  being  heirs  of  "gospel  afflic- 
tions." I  wonder  if  there  is  still  affliction  for  us  to  suffer. 
Our  fathers  suffered  a  great  deal  for  this  gospel.  Some  of 
them  laid  their  bones  down  in  the  soil  of  Missouri  and  some 
in  Illinois.  Well,  some  people  are  dying  for  the  sake  of  the 
gospel  to-day.  Charley  Lake  went  to  the  Island  Mission 
knowing  that  he  would  never  return.  He  had  the  seeds  of 
death  in  his  body;  but  he  said,  "I  would  rather  go  over  there 
and  die  in  the  harness  than  to  stay  here  to  rust  out."  So  his 
wife  buried  him  on  a  lonely  island,  where  there  was  not  one 
white  face  upon  which  she  could  look.  Clyde  F.  Ellis  and 
his  young  wife  went  to  the  Island  Mission  and  she  died  there, 
as  much  a  sacrifice  for  the  gospel  as  were  any  of  the  Chris- 
tian martyrs;  and  Clyde  F.  Ellis,  with  that  burden  of  desola- 
tion, stayed  on  there  for  some  months,  until  we  could  send 
help,  and  then  he  got  in  a  boat  and  sailed  for  home,  leaving 
the  bones  of  his  wife  there,  for  he  could  not  even  bring  them 
with  him.  About  a  month  ago  I  heard  him  say,  "I  would 
hate  to  go  back;  it  would  be  hard;  but  if  it  is  ever  necessary 
and  God  ever  wants  me,  I  will  go." " 

We  aren't  all  of  us  required  to  lay  down  our  lives,  but 
sometimes  we  suffer  affliction  in  another  way.  In  the  city 
of  Toronto,  we  have  some  school-teachers  who  were  doing 
their  work  well  in  the  public  schools;  but  some  one  happened 
to  find  out  they  were  Latter  Day  Saints,  so  started  a  war  on 
them  before  the  board  of  education.  The  daily  papers  took 
it  up,  and  they  were  advertised  as  followers  of  Brigham 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  99 

Young  and  believers  in  polygamy.  Do  you  think  it  is  any 
pleasure  for  a  man  to  be  dragged  out  of  the  seclusion  of  his 
home  and  thus  advertised  before  a  great  city?  It  did  not 
cost  a  cent  to  get  all  that  publicity  against  them;  but  it  cost 
us  one  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  to  get  a  few  inches  of  paid 
advertising  in  reply  to  clear  up  the  case  and  show  our  true 
position. 

You  do  not  know  when  you  will  be  called  upon  to  suffer 
similar  misrepresentation;  but,  young  people,  you  have  this 
consolation  at  least:  Emerson  said,  "I  would  advise  any 
young  man  who  wants  to  develop  character,  to  espouse  an 
unpopular  but  true  cause."-  You  most  certainly  have  the 
unpopular  and  most  certainly  the  true  cause,  so  all  that  re- 
mains for  you  to  do  is  defend  it  and  develop  character.  When 
you  go  out  on  the  football  field  and  get  smashed  and  bruised 
and  bumped  around,  you  do  not  complain;  you  say  it  is  de- 
veloping your  manhood  and  your  muscle.  Go  out  and  suffer 
a  little  bit  for  this  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ — it  will  develop 
your  character. 

Last  of  all,  we  are  inheritors  of  the  great  Zionic  Ideal.  You 
have  named  yourselves  Zion  Builders.  You  are  up  against 
the  problem  of  the  ages.  We  have  a  dual  problem.  We  have 
our  missionary  problem  first — to  go  out  in  all  the  world  and 
make  converts.  And  then  the  Zionic  problem,  to  build  a  com- 
munity that  will  represent  the  spirit  and  genius  of  the  gos- 
pel, to  which  people  may  come  when  converted — a  commu- 
nity in  which  justice  and  equality  and  righteousness  prevail, 
in  which  there  shall  be  no  poverty  or  crime  and  a  minimum 
of  sickness.  Men  have  long  been  striving  to  establish  that 
kind  of  a  community.  There  has  been  a  never-ending  desire 
for  it.  It  has  been  a  vision,  but  there  is  always  one  thing 
that  defeats  man's  efforts. 

Did  you  ever  hear  the  old  Russian  fable  of  the  carrot? 
An  old  woman  had  been  so  exceedingly  selfish  in  life  that 
she  never  gave  a  thought  to  anyone  but  herself.  She  died 
and  went  to  hell  and  lay  in  torment  for  a  thousand  years. 
And  then  she  called  to  the  Lord  and  said,  "Lord,  it  is  too 
much.  Give  me  some  avenue  of  escape." 

The  Lord  looking  down  said,  "Can  you  recall  any  abso- 
lutely unselfish  act  you  ever  did?" 


100  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


She  thought  a  moment  and  said,  "Lord,  there  was  one 
thing  a  long  time  ago.  A  hungry  man  asked  me  for  a  car- 
rot, and  I  gave  it  to  him." 

The  Lord  said  to  one  of  the  angels,  "Go  and  bring  the: 
carrot." 

But  the  old  lady  said,  "No,  that  was  a  long  time  ago,  and 
the  carrot  is  long  since  lost. 

"No,"  the  ans\ver  came  back,  "the  witness  of  a  good  deed 
is  never  lost." 

So  the  angel  brought  the  carrot  and  held  it  away  down, 
and  she  took  hold  of  it  and  he  began  to  lift  her  up.  As  he 
lifted  her  up  out  of  hell,  a  great  many  other  lost  souls  took 
hold  upon  her  garments  and  her  feet,  until  there  was  an  end- 
less chain  being  lifted  up  almost  into  heaven.  Then  the 
woman  became  frightened  and  said,  "Let  go!  this  is  my  car- 
rot." When  she  said  that,  the  carrot  broke  and  they  all 
sank  back  into  hell. 

So  every  time  when  humanity  has  tried  to  raise  itself  out 
of  the  hell  of  poverty  and  affliction  and  excessive  labor  Hrat 
has  bowed  man  down  since  the  curse  was  placed  on  him, 
selfishness  has  come  in  and  ruined  it  all. 

We  have  many  social  schemes  of  reform  and  social  re- 
establishment,  but  every  one  has  this  defect,  that  it  pro- 
poses to  build  a  regenerated  society  out  of  unregenerated 
man.  It  won't  work.  Only  the  gospel  has  the  power  to 
regenerate  men.  And  we  must  build  society  with  regenerated 
individuals.  So,  I  say,  we  have  one  thing  at  least  back  of 
us,  and  it  is  the  all-important  thing,  the  regenerative  power 
of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Some  one  says,  "We  are  such  a  small  people  to  undertake 
such  a  tremendous  task!"  How  many  people  sat  with  Je- 
sus Christ  in  the  upper  room  when  they  partook  of  the 
Passover?  There  were  twelve — and  one  a  traitor.  He  laid 
on  the  loyal  ones  the  work  of  evangelizing  the  world.  Cae- 
sar on  his  throne  would  have  laughed  had  he  seen  and  heard 
them,  but  the  time  came  when  they  converted  the  emperor 
of  Rome — though  it  was  a  sad  day  for  the  church. 

Look  at  the  people  we  are  gathering.  Then  look  back 
a  few  years  to  the  time  when  a  General  Conference  could 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  101 


have  been  seated  in  this  middle  row  of  seats;  and  yet  those 
people  were  singing, 

"Give  us  room  that  we  may  dwell! 

Zion's  children  cry  aloud. 
See  their  numbers — how  they  swell ! 
How  they  gather,  like  a  cloud." 

They  had  faith.  They  had  vision.  If  we  have  half  the 
faith  they  had,  what  can  we  not  accomplish  in  the  next  fifty 
years,  with  the  people  who  are  rallying  to  our  standard? 
Yet,  as  I  said  the  other  night,  "I  do  not  look  upon  you  people 
as  an  army."  I  look  upon  these  young  people  as  a  corps 
of  recruiting  officers.  They  are  come  to  be  prepared  for 
their  work.  They  are  going  out  after  volunteers.  They  are 
to  raise  the  army  of  the  Lord. 

In  view,  then,  of  the  glory  and  beauty  of  our  inheritance, 
should  we  not  defend  it  and  safeguard  it  ?  The  first  thing  to 
do  is  to  assert  our  claim. 

If  a  man  bears  the  reproach  of  his  father's  name — there  is 
some  reproach  attaching  to  the  name  of  Smith — he  wants  his 
father's  inheritance.  Mine  wasn't  much,  but  I  wanted  that 
little  lot  in  Nauvoo  and  I  secured  the  service  of  a  good  law- 
yer to  perfect  my  title. 

You  people  have  a  name.  You  can't  escape  from  it.  The 
world  will  fasten  it  on  you.  At  the  best  they  will  call  you 
Latter  Day  Saints,  and  at  the  worst  they  will  call  you  "Mor- 
mons." They  have  you  spotted.  You  can  sneak  around  and 
hide  if  you  want  to,  but  it  won't  save  you.  You  might  just 
as  well  stand  up  and  take  the  name  of  Christ  and  claim  your 
inheritance  and  get  all  there  is  coming  to  us  in  this  religious 
business. 

I  think  we  certainly  ought  to  safeguard  our  inheritance  by 
retaining  a  proper  advocate.  You  know  that  the  Devil  is  a 
shrewd  lawyer.  He  talked  Adam  and  Eve  out  of  their  estate 
in  the  Garden  of  Eden,  and  he  can  talk  you  out  of  your  in- 
heritance, too,  if  you  listen  to  him.  But  we  have  a  better 
advocate,  "an  advocate  with  the  Father,  even  Jesus  Christ 
the  Righteous."  (1  John  2:1.) 

T  must  bring  this  sermon  to  a  close.    I  am  exceedingly  weli 


102  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


pleased  with  the  way  these  young  people's  revivals  have  de- 
veloped. They  show  to  me  that  God  is  working  with  us. 
Six  months  ago  no  one  thought  about  such  a  thing;  these  re- 
vivals just  came  on  us  like  a  gentle  dew  from  heaven. 

Some  of  the  things  that  I  have  observed  among  the  young 
people  seem  to  be  very  encouraging.  Did  you  hear  those  little 
boys  testify  this  morning  at  prayer  service?  And  yesterday, 
when  I  was  going  down  the  street,  a  little  boy  about  eleven 
years  old  stopped  me.  He  said,  "Mr.  Smith,  what  is  your 
sermon  subject  to-morrow  night?"  I  have  had  little  boys 
stop  me  to  ask  the  time  of  day,  to  ask  how  the  ball  game 
came  out,  or  to  borrow  a  match  to  light  a  cigaret,  but  never 
before  did  I  have  a  little  boy  ask  me  what  I  was  going  to 
preach  about  to-morrow  night. 

A  little  later  a  twelve-year-old  girl  said  to  me,  "Brother 
Smith,  I  have  been  to  every  meeting.  I  took  my  notebook 
along  the  first  night,  but  I  got  so  interested  that  I  just  sat 
with  my  mouth  open  all  evening  and  never  thought  to  take  a 
note."  I  think  I  ought  to  write  that  down  and  have  it  framed 
in  a  golden  frame  and  hang  it  over  my  desk,  and  if  I  ever 
get  jealous  of  the  superior  education  or  attainments  of  other 
men  (which  I  have  never  been) ,  I  will  look  at  that  inscription 
and  say,  "Thank  God  for  this  one  thing:  he  helped  me  preach 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  so  that  little  children  could  under- 
stand it."  And  if  that  be  true,  there  won't  be  one  of  you  older 
people  who,  when  you  get  up  to  the  judgment  seat,  can  say, 
"Brother  Smith,  I  heard  you  preach  in  Lamoni,  but  I  didn't 
know  what  you  were  talking  about." 

I  have  not  hesitated  to  give  you  all  I  had  to  give.  I  have 
tried  to  reach  your  sense  of  reason  through  logic;  and  I  have 
appealed  to  your  emotion  on  occasions,  but  never  have  I 
tried  to  arouse  an  emotion  in  you  that  I  did  not  feel  myself. 
You  cannot  kindle  a  fire  with  a  torch  that  is  not  itself  burn- 
ing. No  preacher  can  arouse  enthusiasm  unless  he  is  on  fire 
with  enthusiasm,  and  so  all  I  wish  you  to  feel,  I  have  felt. 

I  have  delivered  the  message  as  best  I  could.  It  is  yours 
now.  It  is  yours  to  determine  what  you  will  make  of  it.  I 
know  that,  following  these  efforts,  there  are  many  filled  with 
enthusiasm  who  will  immediately  want  to  be  assigned  some 
great  task.  And  Brother  Garver  will  not  have  a  special  task 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  103 


to  assign  to  each  one  of  you;  but  my  advice  to  you  young 
people  is  this :  Go  on  with  the  work  of  preparation,  and  when 
God  is  ready  for  you  he  knows  where  you  are.  He  knew 
where  to  find  little  Samuel  in  the  dead  hours  of  the  night.  He 
knew  where  to  find  Joseph  who  was  sold  into  Egypt.  He 
knew  where  to  find  Joseph  Smith  at  fifteen  years  of  age,  un- 
educated and  obscured  by  poverty,  even  under  the  most  plebian 
name  man  ever  bore',  the  name  of  Smith.  He  knows  where  to 
find  you. 

We  used  to  have  a  motto  in  the  Student  Society,  the  pioneer 
in  the  work  of  the  young  people.  The  motto  was,  "Get  thy 
spindle  and  distaff  ready  and  the  Lord  will  send  thee  flax!" 
There  was  not  a  member  of  that  society  who  got  his  spindle 
and  distaff  ready  that  God  did  not  give  him  more  flax  than 
he  could  spin.  Who  has  seen  a  man  among  us  fitted,  and 
who  is  at  his  work,  but  what  had  more  tasks  coming  to  his 
hand  than  he  could  possibly  do?  Get  yourselves  ready.  Go 
on  with  your  preparation,  the  training  of  prayer  and  study, 
and  when  the  right  moment  comes,  God  will  give  you  your 
work. 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  1U-", 


Fundamentals 

Synopsis  of  a  sermon  at  the  Stone  Church, 
Independence,  Missouri,  Sunday  afternoon, 
June  5,  1921 

"And  I  say  unto  thee,  that  thou  art  Peter,  and  upon  this 
rock  I  will  build  my  church;  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not 
prevail  against  it." — Matthew  16: 18. 

"Therefore,  whosoever  heareth  these  sayings  of  mine,  and 
doeth  them,  I  will  liken  him  unto  a  wise  man,  which  built  his 
house  upon  a  rock:  and  the  rain  descended,  and  the  floods 
came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house;  and  it 
fell  not;  for  it  was,  founded  upon  a  rock.  And  everyone  that 
heareth  these  sayings  of  mine,  and  doeth  them  not,  shall  be 
likened  unto  a  foolish  man,  which  built  his  house  upon  the 
sand:  and  the  rains  descended,  and  the  floods  came,  and  the 
winds  blew,  and  beat  upon  that  house;  and  it  fell:  and  great 
was  the  fall  of  it."— Matthew  7:  24-27. 

"Yet  once  more  I  shake  not  the  earth  only,  but  also  heaven. 
And  this  word,  yet  once  more,  signifieth  the  removing  of  those 
things  that  are  shaken,  as  of  things  that  are  made,  that  those 
things  which  cannot  be  shaken  may  remain.  Wherefore,  we 
receiving  a  kingdom  which  cannot  be  moved,  let  us  have  grace, 
whereby  we  may  serve  God  acceptably  with  reverence  and 
godly  fear."— Hebrews  12:  26-28. 

If  we  ask  any  man  any  question  concerning  life  he  will 
give  an  answer  that  is  based  to  a  large  extent  on  his  own 
experiences,  and  in  turn  those  experiences  grow  out  of  the 
fundamental  philosophy  of  life  by  which  he  has  governed  him- 
self. The  application  of  these  remarks  will  be  seen  later  and 
may  be  illustrated  by  some  examples. 

If  we  ask  the  time-worn  question,  "Is  marriage  a  failure?" 
we  will  receive  a  great  variety  of  answers.  One  woman  with 
the  hardest,  most  cynical,  and  worldly  wise  smile  ever  seen 
out  of  hell  will  say,  "Yes,  it  is  the  biggest  failure  there  is." 
She  is  thinking  about  her  own  experience.  She  recalls  the 
brief  courtship,  the  hasty  marriage,  the  six  weeks  or  six 
months  of  disillusionment,  and  then  the  divorce  court. 

Another  woman,  with  the  happiest  smile  ever  seen  out  of 
heaven,  will  say,  "No,  it  is  not  a  failure;  but  life  would  be 


106  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

a  failure  without  it."  She  is  thinking  about  her  happy  home, 
her  loving  children,  her  kind  and  considerate  husband.  She 
recalls  the  experiences  she  had  as  a  sweetheart,  wife,  and 
mother.  She  feels  that  without  these  things  life  would  have 
been  a  failure.  She  answers  our  question  in  the  light  of  the 
individual  experience  that  she  has  had. 

Probably  in  each  instance  the  experience  was  the  result  of 
the  fundamental  philosophy  of  marriage  that  either  the  indi- 
vidual or  her  husband  or  both  of  them  lived  by  while  they 
were  in  that  State.  In  the  one  instance  the  philosophy  of  one 
or  both  parties  to  the  contract  embraced  only  selfish  gratifica- 
tion. It  contemplated  so  much  as  possible  the  escape  from 
responsibility  and  the  gratification  only  .of  the  senses.  Jn 
the  other  instance,  the  philosophy  of  marriage  contemplated 
duty  and  responsibility.  It  had  in  mind  the  home  and  the 
family.  It  contemplated  honoring  the  marriage  covenant  and 
the  promise  to  keep  themselves  "for  each  other  and  from  all 
others."  It  contemplated  a  love  that  would  endure  from  the 
first  joy  ride  of  the  honeymoon  until  one  or  the  other  took 
the  last  sad  ride  under  the  nodding  plumes  of  the  village 
hearse.  As  a  natural  result  of  these  experiences  the  answer 
to  our  question  was  determined.  One  couple  got  down  to 
fundamentals  and  established  themselves  on  a  rock,  and  the 
other  did  not. 

7s  Christianity  a  Failure? 

I  started  out  to  give  you  an  illustration  and  it  will  be  bad 
homiletics  to  confine  a  whole  sermon  to  an  illustration.  But 
you  may  take  any  other  question.  The  question,  for  instance, 
that  so  many  are  asking:  "Is  Christianity  a  failure?"  Many 
are  asking  it  and  many  are  answering  it;  and  the  answer  you 
get  will  depend  upon  the  individual  experience  of  the  ones 
giving  the  answer,  and  their  experience  in  turn  depends  upon 
the  fundamental  concept  of  Christianity  to  which  they  have 
conformed  their  lives.  One  man  dug  deep  and  established  his 
Christian  character  on  a  rock,  and  he  answers  without  hesi- 
tation that  Christianity  is  not  a  failure.  The  other  man 
builds  his  house  on  the  sand;  the  storm  comes  and  demolishes 
it  and  he  rises  up  out  of  the  ruins  and  says,  "Christianity  is 
a  failure.  The  church  has  gone  to  the  dogs."  You  have  but 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  107 


to  look  around  you  to  see  that  performance  repeated  contin- 
ually. 

The  fault  was  not  with  the  church  or  Christianity,  but  with 
the  individual,  and  it  rested  with  the  difference  there  is  be- 
tween real  Christianity  and  superficial  Christianity.  You 
know  that  old-fashioned  mahogany  furniture  will  wear  for 
generations;  it  will  never  peel  off.  But  mahogany  veneer 
will  scale  off  any  time  when  it  is  subjected  to  hard  knocks.  So 
real  Christianity  will  endure,  but  the  Christianity  that  is  put 
on  the  outside  will  fall  away  sooner  or  later. 

Without  doubt  if  you  had  asked  this  question  of  Judas  Is- 
cariot  he  would  have  said  without  hesitation,  "Yes,  Christian- 
ity is  a  failure."  He  was  willing  to  sell  it,  or  the  hope  and 
interest  that  he  had  in  it,  for  thirty  pieces  of  silver.  But  if  the 
question  had  been  put  to  John  he  would  have  answered,  "No, 
Christianity  is  not  a  failure." 

There  was  a  time  in  the  life  of  Peter  when  he  would  have 
said,  "Yes,  it  is  a  failure."  It  did  not  keep  him  from  lying 
and  swearing  and  deserting  his  Master.  Jesus  said  to  him, 
"When  you  are  converted,  strengthen  your  brethren."  Peter 
was  trying  to  make  love  to  the  church  with  one  arm,  while  he 
hung  on  to  the  things  of  the  world  with  the  other.  But  after 
Pentecost,  and  more  and  more  as  he  grew  in  grace  and  the 
knowledge  of  the  truth,  his  answer  would  have  been  clear  and 
definite,  because  there  came  a  time  when  he  established  him- 
self upon  fundamentals. 

The  Church  Built  on  a  Rock 

So  far  as  the  church  is  concerned,  Jesus  Christ  was  very 
careful  to  establish  it  on  a  rock.  He  did  not  go  out  and  find 
some  nice  level  stretch  of  sand,  where  no  excavation  was 
necessary,  and  build  the  church  there;  but  with  love,  and  with 
sweat,  and  toil,  ^and  blood,  and  self-denial  he  dug  down  deep 
and  established  his  church  on  the  solid  rock;  and  he  demands 
that  every  individual  in  building  his  individual  character 
shall  with  sweat  and  with  labor  and  with  self-denial  dig  down 
and  establish  himself  on  the  rock. 

That  is  one  thing  that  he  won't  do  for  you.  He  put  the 
rock  foundation  under  the  church,  but  you  have  to  put  the 
rock  foundation  under  your  own  character.  That  is,  in  the 


108  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 


sense  that  Peter  says,  we  shall  add  to  our  faith,  virtue;  to 
our  virtue,  knowledge;  to  our  knowledge,  temperance,  etc. 
That  is  practical  Christianity.  We  are  getting  down  to  the 
basis  of  success  in  Zion.  It  is  going  to  depend  on  the  indi- 
vidual who  puts  the  rock  foundation  under  his  Christian  char- 
acter, who  is  like  the  wise  man  Jesus  mentioned  who  estab- 
lished his  house  on  the  rock,  and  not  like  the  individual  who 
built  his  house  on  the  sand. 

Jesus  says  his  church  is  established  on  a  rock.  We  don't 
need  especially  to  worry  so  much  about  the  church;  not  if  we 
believe  this  language.  Jesus  Christ  said  those  words.  Is 
there  anybody  in  the  house  who  for  a  moment  doubts  the 
sayings  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  his  power  to  execute  them?  We 
do  not  need  to  worry.  If  you  think  he  was  talking  about  this 
church  there  is  no  cause  for  worry  concerning  its  final  victory. 
If  you  think  he  was  talking  about  the  Methodist  Church,  the 
Baptist  Church,  or  the  Utah  Mormon  Church,  or  some  other 
people,  why,  go  and  get  in  with  them;  but  if  you  think  he  was 
talking  about  this  church  there  is  no  occasion  for  doubt,  for 
Jesus  said  he  built  it  on  the  rock. 

Of  course  this  language  that  he  used  has  been  the  subject 
of  a  great  deal  of  speculation.  People  have  wondered  what 
the  rock  was  he  was  talking  about.  Some  have  said  it  was 
revelation,  some  one  thing,  and  some  another.  I  realize,  of 
course,  that  the  expression,  "a  rock"  is  figurative  language 
that  may  be  used  sometimes  to  mean  one  thing  and  sometimes 
another.  But  I  will  tell  you  how  this  language  in  this  par- 
ticular text  appeals  to  me,  because  it  has  a  bearing  on  some 
points  I  want  to  bring  out.  Jesus  asked  the  disciples,  "Whom 
say  men  that  I  am?"  and  when  they  answered  him  he  said, 
"Whom  say  ye  that  I  am  ? "  Peter  answered  and  said,  "Thou 
art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God."  There  then  fol- 
lowed a  little  conversation,  but  the  main  statement  that  fol- 
lowed was,  "Upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church."  It  seems 
to  me  that  the  rock  that  underlies  the  Christian  church  is  the 
fact  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  the  living  God,  and  the 
Savior  of  the  world.  Jesus  said,  "Upon  this  rock  I  will  build 
my  church,  and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it." 

Most  religions  recognize  God  (some  God),  but  there  is  only 
one  religion  that  recognizes  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Son  of  God, 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  109 


and  that  is  the  Christian  religion.  You  take  the  fact  away, 
if  it  could  be  taken  away,  and  the  Christian  church  would 
have  no  foundation.  But  fortunately  that  fact  cannot  be  re- 
moved, and  it  stands  the  supreme  fact  on  which  the  church 
of  Jesus  Christ  rests.  He  is  the  Son  of  God  and  the  Savior 
of  the  world.  Of  course,  his  message  contemplates  also  the 
fatherhood  of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

He  established  the  church  on  the  rock,  then  admonished  in- 
dividuals that  in  building  their  particular  houses  they  should 
dig  deep  and  build  them  on  the  rock.  So  the  main  thing  for 
us  to  consider  will  be  our  individual  foundations. 

We  do  not  need  to  worry  so  much  about  the  foundation  of 
the  church.  We  notice  from  time  to  time  defections  that 
occur  within  our  ranks.  Individuals  lose  the  faith  and  quit 
the  church  for  one  excuse  or  another,  some  of  which  seem  to 
us  to  be  very  trivial.  This  is  no  new  thing,  for  even  in  the 
time  of  Christ  himself  there  came  a  day  when  many  would 
follow  after  him  no  more.  And  it  continues  to-day.  For  one 
reason  or  another  individuals  become  discouraged  and  their 
faith  is  shaken  and  their  spiritual  house  falls  down,  because 
it  was  not  established  on  fundamentals.  They  were  putting 
their  trust  in  something  that  was  transient. 

Fundamentals  in  Theology 

So  far  as  the  preaching  of  this  church  is  concerned,  from 
time  immemorial  the  message  that  our  elders  have  preached 
included  what  we  term  the  principles  of  the  gospel.  It  is 
said  that  when  the  elders  asked  Joseph  Smith  what  to  preach, 
he  said,  "Preach  the  principles."  When  they  said,  "Then 
what  shall  we  preach?"  he  said,  "Preach  the  principles."  So 
the  burden  of  our  preaching  throughout  the  world  has  in- 
cluded the  principles  of  the  gospel. 

Of  course  there  has  been  associated  with  this  the  preaching 
of  the  Zionic  principles  as  rapidly  as  we  understood  them  and 
people  were  ready  to  hear  them.  I  am  aware  that  there  has 
come  a  time  when  some  are  arguing  that  we  have  reached 
the  stage  when  we  should  go  into  the  world  and  tell  the  peo- 
ple first  the  story  of  Zion — that  that  is  the  first  thing  we 
should  preach  to  the  nations  of  the  earth.  That  we  should 
preach  temporal  salvation,  the  gathering,  equality,  that  the 


110  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

people  are  not  interested  any  longer  in  faith,  repentance, 
baptism,  etc. 

Personally  I  cannot  altogether  agree  with  them.  The  mes- 
sage of  Jesus  Christ  first,  last,  and  all  the  time  was,  "Ye 
must  be  born  again."  He  addressed  the  individual. 

The  mistake  reformers  make  to-day  is  in  thinking  it  is  pos- 
sible to  establish  a  regenerated  society  out  of  unregenerated 
individuals.  Now  Jesus  didn't  make  that  mistake,  but  he  said 
positively  to  every  man,  "Ye  must  be  born  again";  and  he 
said  also  that  except  a  man  is  born  of  water  and  of  the  Spirit 
he  cannot  even  see  the  kingdom,  much  less  enter  into  it.  Most 
of  these  that  we  call  the  principles  of  the  gospel  cluster 
around  this  great  idea  of  individual  regeneration,  of  being 
born  again  through  faith  and  repentance  and  baptism  and 
the  birth  of  the  Spirit;  so  it  seems  to  me  that  it  is  necessary 
and  will  be  necessary  to  proclaim  those  fundamentals  of  our 
theology  so  long  as  the  church  goes  out  to  preach  any  message 
at  all  to  sinful  and  sorrowing  peoples.  And  not  until  indi- 
viduals see  the  necessity  of  personal  repentance  and  regenera- 
tion and  actual  obedience  to  it  will  they  ever  be  in  condition 
to  "see  the  kingdom" — in  other  words,  they  cannot  see  Zion, 
or  vision  it,  or  get  even  a  glimpse  of  it  until  they  have  actually 
yielded  obedience  to  the  principles  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Fundamentals  in  Belief 

I  think  we  must  have  fundamentals  in  our  belief.  I  call  to 
your  attention  the  fact  that  individuals  who  do  not  pin  their 
faith  to  fundamentals  sooner  or  later  come  to  grief.  For  in- 
stance, we  at  one  time  received  a  letter  from  a  field  where 
there  had  been  given  a  prophecy  through  a  certain  individual. 
One  of  the  missionaries  wrote  and  said  there  were  mission- 
aries in  that  field  who,  if  that  prophecy  failed,  would  im- 
mediately quit  the  mission  field;  because  if  that  were  not  true, 
they  had  no  knowledge  that  anything  connected  with  the 
church  and  the  gospel  was  true. 

We  wrote  this  brother  and  said,  "You  have  made  a  great 
mistake.  You  should  build  your  faith  on  fundamentals,  and 
one  of  those  fundamentals  is  the  fact  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the 
Son  of  God;  another  is  that  the  gospel  is  true  and  powerful 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  111 

to  save  and  has  been  restored  to  earth  again  in  these  last 
days;  another  that  Christ  has  established  his  church  upon  the 
rock.  You  must  pin  your  faith  to  fundamentals  and  not  to 
any  passing,  local,  spiritual  manifestation  that  may  come 
through  either  man  or  woman." 

A  great  many  people  have  spoken  in  prophecy  in  the  past 
whose  utterances  did  not  come  true.  There  never  has 
been  such  a  manifestation  that  could  affect  the  fundamentals 
of  the  Christian  religion  in  any  way;  so  we  must  pin  our  faith 
to  the  eternal  verities  and  not  pin  it  to  some  transient,  local, 
passing,  spiritual  manifestation.  So  if  there  is  anyone  here 
who  has  ever  been  disturbed  by  the  failure  of  a  prophecy  or 
tongue  or  vision  or  dream  that  came  through  any  individual, 
it  should  not  even  remotely  disturb  his  faith  in  the  funda- 
mental principles  of  the  gospel. 

Then  I  come  in  contact  once  in  a  while  with  an  individual 
who  concludes  that  Joseph  Smith  the  Martyr  was  a  polyg- 
amist,  and,  reaching  that  conclusion,  it  is  the  beginning  of  his 
downfall  and  apostasy. 

I  do  not  believe  that  Joseph  Smith  was  a  polygamist.  I 
will  just  refer  to  two  reasons.  You  know  that  every  family 
has  its  family  traditions  that  come  down  inside  of  the  family 
and  may  not  be  known  to  the  outer  world.  It  happens  that  I 
was  born  in  the  old  city  of  Nauvoo  in  the  Mansion  House. 
My  mother  and  father  lived  there  with  my  grandmother,  the 
widow  of  Joseph  Smith.  I  was  knowing  to  the  family  tradi- 
tions, and  it  is  unthinkable  to  me  that  Joseph  Smith  should 
have  had  eighteen  or  twenty  or  any  number  of  wives  and 
some  secret,  family  tradition  should  not  have  come  down  to 
me  that  would  have  revealed  that  fact.  But  I  never  heard 
one,  even  remotely  suggesting  that  such  was  the  case.  And  it 
is  even  more  incredible  that  the  late  President  Joseph  Smith, 
who  was  twelve  years  of  age  at  the  time  of  his  father's  death, 
and  lived  with  him  in  Nauvoo  and  continued  living  there  for 
many  years,  should  never  have  seen  or  heard  or  come  in  con- 
tact with  such  family  traditions,  if  his  father  were  a  polyg- 
:>mist.  You  know  what  he  said  in  the  Temple  Lot  Suit,  and 
you  know  if  ever  there  was  a  man  who  graced  Independence 
by  his  residence,  who  could  be  depended  upon  absolutely  to 


112  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

tell  the  truth  at  all  times,  it  was  the  late  President  Joseph 
Smith. 

Again,  the  only  time  this  question  was  ever  aired  before  a 
disinterested  court,  competent  to  judge  evidence,  and  before 
an  unprejudiced  judge,  a  verdict  was  brought  in  that  ab- 
solved Joeph  Smith.  So  I  trust  that  no  one  will  be  too  hard 
on  me  when  I  do  not  consider  that  a  man  is  guilty  when  he 
has  been  adjudged  innocent,  because  that  would  be  the  rever- 
sal of  the  principles  of  jurisprudence,  which  says  we  must 
consider  men  innocent  until  they  are  proved  to  be  guilty. 

I  did  not  start  out  to  argue  this  thing.  I  say  I  do  not  be- 
lieve that  Joseph  Smith  was  a  polygamist;  but  if  evidence  is 
ever  unearthed  to  prove  that  he  was,  so  that  no  one  can  deny 
it,  it  will  not  change  my  faith  in  the  least,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  I  was  not  baptized  into  Joseph  Smith;  I  was  bap- 
tized into  Jesus  Christ. 

If  1  am  ever  convinced  that  Joseph  Smith  was  a  polygamist 
it  will  not  change  my  course  in  the  least.  Certainly  I  will 
not  take  that  for  my  gospel,  as  it  is  a  poor  message  to  preach 
to  a  dying  world.  I  will  go  right  on  preaching  the  fundamen- 
tal gospel  principles  which  cannot  be  changed  by  anything 
Joseph  Smith  did  or  did  not  do. 

Some  of  our  Whitmerite  friends  make  a  great  ado  over  the 
idea  that  the  church  should  take  upon  it  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ.  Did  you  ever  stop  to  analyze  the  name  of  the  Reor- 
ganized Church  of  Jesus  Christ  of  Latter  Day  Saints  ?  What 
is  the  vital  part  of  the  name  ?  "The  Church  of  Jesus  Christ." 
All  other  words  and  phrases  in  that  title  are  qualifying.  The 
vital  part  of  the  name  is  The  Church  of  Jesus  Christ.  And 
the  church  has  taken  upon  it  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ,  just 
as  the  Book  of  Mormon  said  it  should. 

The  Fundamentals  of  Character  and  Conduct 

If  we  are  to  stand  the  trying  times  that  are  coming  upon 
the  earth,  we  must  also  give  attention  to  fundamentals  in 
our  deportment  and  Christian  character.  Peter  struck  the 
keynote  along  that  line  in  his  second  epistle  and  the  first 
chapter.  I  know  that  it  is  read  so  often  that  perhaps  you 
lose  the  force  of  it  because  it  becomes  so  familiar  to  you,  but 
just  notice  how  exceedingly  important  it  is: 


Builders'  Sennonu  113 


"And  besides  this,  giving  all  diligence,  add  to  your  faith 
virtue;  and  to  virtue,  knowledge;  and  to  knowledge,  temper- 
ance; and  to  temperance,  patience;  and  to  patience,  godliness; 
and  to  godliness,  brotherly  kindness;  and  to  brotherly  kind- 
ness, charity.  For  if  these  things  be  in  you,  and  abound, 
they  make  you  that  ye  shall  neither  be  barren  nor  unfruitful 
in  the  knowledge  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  But  he  that  lack- 
eth  these  things  is  blind,  and  cannot  see  afar  off,  and  hath  for- 
gotten that  he  was  purged  from  his  old  sins.  Wherefore  the 
rather,  brethren,  give  diligence  to  make  your  calling  and 
election  sure;  for  if  ye  do  these  things,  ye  shall  never  fall." 

That  is  getting  right  down  to  fundamentals.  If  you  do 
these  things,  you  will  never  fall.  You  will  be  like  the  wise 
man,  who  dug  deeply  and  built  carefully  upon  a  rock,  so  that 
when  the  storm  came  his  house  stood.  I  have  no  fear  that 
anyone  who  pursues  this  course  will  ever  fall  away  from  the 
church. 

I  think  if  you  will  stop  to  analyze  even  a  few  of  these 
Christian  virtues  and  this  policy  of  deportment  you  will  see 
how  very  important  it  is.  You  can  see,  at  least,  how  impor- 
tant it  is  in  the. ministry. 

Add  to  your  faith,  virtue.  Is  it  necessary  for  the  minister 
to  have  faith?  You  will  say,  of  course  it  is.  If  he  doesn't 
have  faith,  he  won't  stay  in  the  missionary  field  very  long; 
and  even  if  he  did  stay,  what  would  his  message  amount  to 
if  he  did  not  believe  it  ?  I  do  not  think  anyone  can  put  any 
lasting  force  into  a  message  that  he  does  not  himself  believe. 
There  may  be  some  pretty  good  actors  in  the  pulpit,  but  peo- 
ple will  discover,  sooner  or  later,  that  they  are  only  actors. 

Is  it  necessary  for  the  minister  to  have  virtue?  You  know 
that  the  minister  who  goes  out  representing  this  church  can- 
not successfully  preach  virtue  unless  he  has  it.  You  know 
that  he  goes  into  scores  of  homes  where  he  is  trusted  as  an 
angel  from  heaven.  You  know  that  if  he  should  betray  the 
sanctity  of  one  of  those  homes  his  ministry  would  end.  It 
would  not  necessarily  follow  that  he  would  be  found  out.  The 
appointing  authorities  might  not  know  about  it.  They  might 
not  hear  about  it.  But  God  would  see  that  his  ministry  ended. 
I  will  tell  you  that  no  man  can  stand  in  the  pulpit  and  preach 
to  men  to  be  godly  while  his  conscience  is  saying  all  the  time, 


114  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

"You  are  a  hypocrite  and  a  fraud ;  you  talk  godliness,  yet  you 
know  what  you  did!"  When  a  man  goes  into  the  pulpit  in  a 
joint  debate  of  that  kind  with  his  conscience,  he  is  going  to 
lose  out. 

So  our  minister  has  got  to  have  virtue,  knowledge,  temper- 
ance, humility.  Why,  if  there  is  anything  that  sooner  or  later 
disqualifies  a  man  for  the  ministry,  it  is  a  lack  of  humility. 
If  he  has  the  saving  grace  of  humility  he  has  the  respect  of 
the  people.  A  little  while  ago  we  had  a  great  revival  for  the 
young  people  in  this  room  and  the  room  was  filled  with  young 
people.  It  was  a  wonderful  affair.  It  was  necessary  while 
that  was  going  on  for  some  one  to  go  downstairs  to  a  smaller 
audience  and  preach  to  the  overflow  meeting.  Brother 
Phillips  did  that,  and  he  was  very  successful  in  it.  A  little 
later  I  went  to  Lamoni  and  preached  to  a  crowd  of  young 
people.  It  was  necessary  at  the  same  time  for  some  one  to 
go  downstairs  to  a  lesser  audience  and  preach  to  them,  and 
Brother  J.  W.  Wight,  my  senior  in  years,  did  it  with  humility, 
and  I  honored  him  for  it.  But  for  years,  when  President 
Smith  and  I  were  making  out  the  schedule  for  appointment  for 
General  Conference,  there  was  at  least  one  man  we  knew  that 
we  didn't  dare  ask  to  go  downstairs  and  preach  at  conference 
time.  Many  a  time  I  have  taken  the  lesser  appointment  out 
of  consideration  for  the  feelings  of  others.  But,  fortunately, 
we  knew  that  among  the  ministers  almost  any  one  of  the 
others  would  go  anywhere  we  asked  him  to  go. 

There  is  a  branch  of  the  church  not  so  very  far  from  here, 
not  more  than  a  thousand  miles,  at  most,  where  for  forty 
years  there  has  been  a  condition  of  discord,  and  it  became 
necessary  for  the  district  president  to  go  in  and  clean  it  up. 
He  used  some  drastic  means  and  silenced  some  of  those  men. 
One  of  those  elders  who  was  put  under  silence  immediately 
wrote  to  the  Presidency  and  said,  "Now  I  appeal  to  you;  you 
may  immediately  lift  that  silence  or  else  take  my  name  off 
the  church  record.." 

We  like  studies  in  contrast.  I  heard  another  story  at  the 
Sanitarium  the  other  day.  I  called  on  Brother  M.  A.  Etzen- 
houser,  who  had  undergone  an  operation.  He  was  complain- 
ing that  he  had  not  had  a  shave.  You  know  how  uncomfort- 
able a  man  is  when  he  has  not  had  a  shave.  This  brought 


Zion  Builders'  Sermons  115 

out  a  little  story  by  Brother  Walter  Smith,  who  was  with  me. 
Some  years  ago  an  elder  in  Independence  got  into  trouble 
and  was  put  under  silence.  What  did  he  do?  Did  he  ask 
that  his  name  be  removed  from  the  record?  No;  but  unable 
to  serve  the  church  in  its  ministry,  he  took  his  little  shaving- 
set,  and  every  Sunday  for  two  years  he  went  to  the  Sanita- 
rium and  shaved  the  men  patients  who  needed  it.  I  presume  it 
was  as  good  as  medicine  to  some  of  those  men.  It  was  the 
only  service  that  he  could  find,  and  he  went  and  did  it.  It 
was  humble,  personal  service.  It  goes  without  saying,  that 
man  "came  back."  He  didn't  even  need  to  come  and  ask  to 
have  his  license  restored.  The  time  came  when  he  was  sought 
out  and  his  license  was  given  back  to  him.  He  dug  right 
down,  clear  down  to  the  solid  rock,  and  built  his  house  on  it. 
I  will  not  tell  you  his  name,  because  I  do  not  want  to  em- 
barrass him  but  he  is  known  to  all  of  you. 

I  have  said  that  you  can  recognize  that  these  things  are 
essential  to  the  minister.  Are  they  any  less  essential  to  the 
member  ?  If  the  minister  cannot  get  on  without  faith  in  Zion, 
do  you  think  that  you  can  ?  Why,  certainly  not.  If  you  have 
ten  thousand  dollars  surplus  and  you  do  not  believe  with  all 
your  heart  in  the  principles  that  are  going  to  redeem  Zion, 
you  will  hang  on  to  that  ten  thousand  dollars  surplus.  Is  it 
necessary  for  you  to  have  virtue  as  well  as  the  minister?  Do 
you  think  that  Zion  can  be  built  up  from  a  people  who  are 
not  virtuous?  Do  you  think  it  is  necessary  for  you  to  be 
humble  and  charitable  ? 

I  will  tell  you  it  is  necessary  for  all  of  us  to  get  down  to 
fundamentals  in  belief  and  in  deportment  and  in  the  Chris- 
tian qualities  of  our  character. 

Jesus,  as  we  have  said,  laid  the  foundation,  and  he  laid  it 
sure.  Every  man  ought  to  have  a  testimony  in  his  heart 
that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son  of  God.  When  you  get  the  testi- 
mony you  may  occasionally  run  up  against  a  solid  wall.  The 
church  perhaps  comes  to  a  crisis;  but  you  can  always  fall 
back  on  that  testimony:  "Thou  art  the  Christ,  the  Son  of  the 
living  God."  I  want,  before  I  close,  to  testify  here  that  Jesus 
Christ  is  my  Savior.  I  do  not  say  that  simply  out  of  form, 
but  I  know  what  he  saved  me  from.  Nobody  else  knows. 
You  know  what  he  saved  you  from.  I  do  not.  His  gospel  and 


116  Zion  Builders'  Sermons 

his  church  have  made  me  what  I  am.    They  have  been  every- 
thing to  me  in  this  world. 

Now  we  ought  to  be  careful,  of  course.  We  all  think  we 
are  going  to  stand  fast,  but  the  old  poem  says,  "Many  who 
now  stand  proudly  fast,  shall,  tried  and  tempted,  fall  at  last." 
I  have  no  more  thought  to-day  of  falling  away  than  1  have  of 
cutting  off  my  hand;  yet  I  remember  what  Paul  said.  A  cold 
fear,  like  an  icy  blast,  came  into  his  heart  at  one  time,  and 
he  said:  "I  am  afraid  that,  having  saved  others,  I  will  maks 
shipwreck  myself."  There  is  one  way  that  we  can  make  sure, 
and  that  is,  to  get  down  to  fundamentals  and  put  our  feet 
upon  the  solid  rock — in  our  belief,  in  our  theology,  in  our 
deportment,  in  our  Christian  development. 


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